The Masque, La Salle University's student-run theater organization, was founded in 1934. With the support of faculty advisor Joseph Sprissler the Masque presented its first performance on December 27, 1934 with the play Sun Up. Though there have been some gaps (particularly during WWII when the group briefly disbanded), the Masque has continued to put on plays and musicals almost continuously since its inception.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
La Salle University
Not new are the ideas of Tom Stoppard to center the action of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in the periphery of Shakespeare' s Hamlet and to set the two minor characters as protagonists. Theatre history records the 1891 London production of a now - long forgotten comedy by W.S. Gilbert, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in which Hamlet is banished and Rosencrantz marries Ophelia at the end of the play. Stoppard does not distort the story or parody the text of Hamlet. He uses, however, the small fragments of Shakespeare's text and builds around the incidents of Rosencrantz's and Guildenstern's life which Shakespeare has left out. We see those two inseparable characters, whom no one seems to be able to tell apart, trying to cope with an impossible mission: Finding out Hamlet's ailment and then taking him to England only to meet their death. Their confusion of not knowing why they were sent for and what is expected of them, their fear of the incomprehensible world in which no logic seem to operate and no guideposts are being provided, are the dilemmas often identified with the modem man. They cope with their fear by playing games and longing for a world in which there would be no answers for their questions. So do we.
Helena M. White, Director
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Twelth Night
La Salle University
When 'Viola and her identical twin brother Sebastian are shipwrecked off the coast of Illyria, neither knows that the other has survived. Disguising herself as a young man and adopting the name Cesario, 'Viola enters the service of Duke Orsino, with whom she soon falls in love. Sebastian, meanwhile is rescued befriended by Antonio, who is generous enough to lend him a large sum of money.
'Viola's disguise produces unexpected complications. The Duke has been pining with unrequited love for the Countess Olivia, who in an extravagant gesture of mourning for her recently deceased brother, has sworn off men for seven years. But when Viola, as Cesario, presents herself at Olivia's door to deliver Orsino's latest declaration of love, Olivia is much taken with this attractive new messenger. Ruefully, Viola realizes that she has become one corner of an unresolvable romantic triangle: she loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, and now Olivia, it seems, loves her.
Olivia has two permanent house-guests: her drunken uncle, Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a suitor for Olivia's hand. Both men heartily approve when the maid, Maria, proposes a practical joke against Olivia's disdainful and self-important steward, Malvolio. Imitating her mistress's handwriting, Maria writes a phony love-letter, advising Malvolio to stop acting like a servant, to smile incessantly, and to wear yellow stockings with fancy garters. When Malvolio struts into Olivia's presence, absurdly dressed and grinning and Maria, promptly have him locked up.
Meanwhile Sir Andrew, jealous of Olivia's obvious interest in Cesario, had been persuaded by Sir Toby to challenge the youth to a duel much to Viola's alarm. She is rescued by Antonio, who naturally thinks Cesario/Viola is his friend Sebastian. When he is recognized as a pirate and arrested, Antonio asks for the money he lent Sebastian, and is deeply hurt when Viola denies all knowledge of it. Later, mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, Sir Andrew renews his assault, only to receive a good thrashing, along with Sir Toby. When Olivia arrives with renewed protestations of love, Sebastian - thoroughly bewildered, but immediately enamored - readily agrees to marry her.
In front of Olivia's house, the Duke and Viola are confronted by Antonio, who insists that Viola is the ingrate to whom he lent money; by Sir Andrew and Sir Toby, who insists she is the bully who has beaten them up; and by Olivia, who insists she is the husband she has just married. Fortunately, at the moment Sebastian arrives on the scene, and Viola's true identity is revealed. Viola accepts the Duke's offer of love, Maria's trick is discovered, and Malvolio, who has been cruelly teased in his cell, is set free. The general air of celebration is tempered only by Malvolio's threat of revenge, and by the clown Feste's final song.
Written by Davia Prosser
Taken from The Stratford Festival Theater -
Fantasies 'n a Buick
La Salle University
Two student-written and directed one-act plays:
Incisions, Decisions, and Her Big Green Buick
by Tim MoxeyThe Shard of Escunith Wood
by Kate Hennessy -
Count Dracula
La Salle College
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, DRACULA, while not the first was surely the most popular and enduring of the gothic novels which has drawn upon the tireless "blood" of the centuries old legend of the vampire. Stoker, a Dublin-born journeyman writer who was manager of Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Theater in London and later Irving's biographer never again-if you will pardon the inevitable word play here-struck a literary vein so rich, nor did he survive to see the various proliferating "spinoffs" and "rip-offs" of his famous novel in print, on the stage, and on film.
The best known and most straight-laced stage version is the Balderston-Deane adaptation of 1927 which introduced Bela Lugosi as an international celebrity and the 1931 film which assured the Hungarian actor of a lucrative Hollywood career, while. giving a whole new meaning to theatrical "immortality." The same script offered American actor Frank Langella a most successful vehicle only three years ago.
But this evenings entertainment is a lesser known and much looser reworking and it is decidedly not designed for Bram Stoker purists. What it aims to recreate is the Victorian equivalent of the "B'' horror movie of the 30's and 40's, repeat with guaranteed thrills and chills in the predictable grand manner and-for the faint of heart-reassuring doses of romance and "comic relief."
Any and all of the fond and familiar Stock characters, situations and assorted melodramatic outrages reconstructed by our author and our cast and crew on behalf of your unadulterated enjoyment are gleefully perpetrated with malice aforethought and no apologies whatever. (And any we may have inadvertently omitted are purely coincidental.) HAVE FUN IF YOU DARE!