5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

J.C. · December 6, 2014

One of the greatest emotional experiences you will have. A nice edition.

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad Four Stars

V.M.W. · September 15, 2007

What this play dramatizes greed, mistrust, murder, superficial actions within marital life - illuminating despair. The lack of hope in this piece is what makes me give it only four stars. There are people who see anything this author does as golden. I have not studied her poetry. Milay puts into a theatrical context sadness of human nature's lack of loving.An adolescent in the 60s, I lived two years in Southern Illinois, while my father served in South Vietnam, in the USAF. The high school I attended used "Aria Da Capo" for their annual theater competitions. I had modest professional theater experiences through my mother, an equity actress. So I got casted as female lead, `Columbine.' I was the only girl with four boys, such a deal! We won every competition, traveling all over Illinois. As an adult I recognized the significance competing with Chicago students. At a class reunion in Illinois one fellow remembered a line from the show. I was astounded a classmate could retain lines for me forgotten for decades. But I did not ever forget the quite dramatic relatively dark themes running through this play.So I recently purchased a copy again . . . the core messages in the script ultimately are depressing - killing over ownership, some cores of war. Serious study of war began for me reacting to the Cuban Missile Crisis. War is hell, but so are many places in this world. Communism (a theme in this play too) is another form of hell on earth. What the fall of the Soviet Union has taught me, education has limitations. The Russian mafia many have PhDs (Read "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State). Thank God Bill Gates didn't let formal education get in his way, not that he is a saint, but he's created great opportunities.This is also a framework play- play within a play - the marriage is the `inside' play. Her characters are done in white face using mismatched puppets, Columbine and Pierrot. The symbolism is powerful.When this was written people stayed married. Milay, popular during roaring twenties was making a mockery of marriage. Well people don't stay married today. The raveling of marriage has impacted the crime rate, mental illness growth, what will our country look like fifty years from today? What we watch effects our behavior, this is a highly cerebral work, certainly better than the gratuitous sex and violence of today. Mother Teresa says the real poverty is in the West.Doing this performance did lead to other opportunities for all of us- however a dark depressing piece of work - for a bunch of teenagers, it did effect my thinking. Illuminating the weaknesses of behaviors the play gives nothing to off set despair, no light of hope are found within these lines. So only four stars.Hmmmmmmm . . . I will begin playwriting for adolescents to perform now . . .

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the CONCEPT, not just the PLAY!!

M.M. · August 29, 2021

I have this work as part of another Kindle download, this being the complete works of Edna St Vincent Millay.The woman was a genius and a wildcat, and this play sets her out as both. The play itself is meaningless babble, with weird characters and goofy lines and a just plane crazy series of events.What glistens is the mind of Millay, and you can see this if you read the descriptions of the characters and her precise and detailed instructions as to how the work is to be presented and how the lines are to be delivered.What she has created is a sort of vision and an experience maybe even a drug trip, best experienced after a bit of reflection and maybe a couple of dry martinis. If you attempt to figure it out and understand the lines and situations literally, you are DOOMED. It makes no sense and the lines are ridiculous.She usually called herself Vincent, and she was as free-swinging and iconoclastic as anyone in her time. In 1921, she was still a wild child, years before fame found her, and living and writing with the free abandon of the roaring twenties, after the end of the war to end all wars. This play is obviously an exercise in the absurd, and it makes no sense until you read her detailed descriptions of the characters and her equally detailed instructions as to how their lines are to be read.With this play, the still youthful Vincent has pulled a fast one one us! I recommend you first read the play itself, then the comments by Vincent, and then read it again.What a blast! You've been brushed by a young, still nascent genius and been taken in by a brilliant sendup!

3.0 out of 5 stars Better poet than dramatist

J.A.R. · October 19, 2014

Millay as a poet is always worth reading. She was a very personal poet; that needs to be kept in mind. As a dramatist she was uneven but like this is worth reading. Just, I would not make too much of it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Good lessons

C.A. · March 30, 2014

Amazing play. Good model for a church story. There are multiple lessons to be learned. Good for high schoolers to put on.