Walls and Willful Blindness

We went to Firelight Theater’s reading of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s play Aria da Capo. She wrote it in 1919 and it drives home the fact that writing a play would be a more familiar process if I were a poet. So sparse and to the point. Witty. Multi-layered. A lesson in showing, not telling. A play has so many potentialities: how it is expressed and interpreted. In fact, that’s why I opted to write a play for the subject I’m currently writing. I knew I couldn’t do it alone.

One of the most impressive aspects of Aria da Capo? It is timeless. Written over a century ago, yet it is entirely applicable to our current reality.

I would likely use more words to write a synopsis of the play than Millay used for the play itself. Here’s the link; it’s worth the read. And here’s what I took away: two stories roll out, one a comedy, the other a tragedy. Together, they reflect our human tendency to create walls and conflict where none might be and to ignore the dead bodies that result so as not to disturb our pleasant conversation and meal.

I wonder why as a species we keep repeating the same mistakes. Think how many civilized civilizations have grown up, only to crash down due to totalitarian oppression and war, plague and famine, ignorance and hate. We build walls in the form of boundaries and rules and beliefs, and we dare others to cross them. How dare they!? Doubt turns into fear, then hate, and family and friends become enemies. How to build trust again when “they” are on the other side of the wall?

Such a great play. Such bracing questions and times. As the weather exposes climate shifts, more and more rapid change, and too many of us feel powerless…are we doomed to merely repeat what has been done before? Can’t we do better this time? Can we break down the walls before they fall down upon us, and proceed with trust, compassion and, most significantly, with an acknowledgment that we are connected to everything around us? That when we do harm, we harm ourselves?