Although there’s no snow, it’s still winter, and Jack Frost isn’t letting up on that biting cold gale. No worries, escaping the chill is easy: just cozy up in the Edina Performing Arts Center, relax and enjoy “The Diviners” and “Burial at Thebes,” this year’s winter plays at EHS.
Playing at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, January 19, 20, and 21, “The Diviners” follows the unlikely friendship between former minister C.C. Showers and a mentally handicapped 14-year-old named Buddy Layman.
While traveling in search of a new life free from preaching, Showers—played by senior Ben Kaufman—arrives in Zion, Indiana. There he meets Buddy and decides to stay and be a companion to him. Buddy—played by senior Aria Shahghasemi—lost his mother as she saved him from drowning when he was a toddler. “He has an intense fear of water, to the point where he won’t go anywhere near it,” explained Shahghasemi.
The story takes place during the Depression era, and examines how bad things can happen to honest, simple people. The production process hasn’t been quite so simple. “The play itself has been kind of a challenge. All the scenes have one or two overlapping lines. It makes it flow in an interesting way, but you have to know one hundred percent what’s going on,” said senior Nick Sweetland, who plays Ferris, Buddy’s father. However, hard work has paid off. “I think we perform it well,” said Sweetland. According to director Tony Matthes in his piece for the program, Director’s Note, “It is a play about a search.” In the play, there is indeed a search for a calling, a mother, and a community.
“Each character is searching for something, and whether they find it or not, you’ll find out if you come to see the show,” said Kaufman.
The following weekend the Edina community is in for another treat: “Burial at Thebes,” the one act production, plays at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, January 27 and 28.
The play is based on Sophocles’ “Antigone,” the third play of the Oedipus Cycle, and takes place in ancient Greece. Junior Linnea Valdivia plays the protagonist, Antigone, who buries her dead brother against the will of the king. Her brother was considered a traitor. She is then sentenced to death.
“[Antigone’s] role in the play is to teach others that sometimes the rules aren’t always right,” said Valdivia of her character. The play considers whether responsibility to family or to the law is ultimately more important.
Fitting all of this into one act less than 35 minutes in length is quite a feat. “When we originally read it the show was almost an hour,” said Valdivia. “[A one act] is fun because…you get to choose what you cut.”
“A one act play is smaller and more intimate, so I think it lends itself to a close-knit cast,” said director and English teacher Fred Cheng. “They seem like they are all best friends.”
