ARIA DA CAPO

   Employing traditional characters and images of harlequinade, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay crafted a classic one-act play and one of her most enduring literary achievements. Constructed as a song in three parts, as its title suggests, Aria da Capo is a theatrically stylized antiwar fantasy combined with a lyric drama of two conflicting shepherds engaged in a territorial struggle. Despite the simple populism of commedia dell'arte's stock characters, Aria da Capo emerges as an eloquent statement on the human penchant for conflict. The Provincetown Players produced it under Millay's direction (she acted in it as well) on 5 December 1919. It later opened in New York on 4 May 1925 for a single performance produced by the Manhattan Little Theatre Club at Wallack's Theatre. Aria da Capo remains a staple among American one-act plays, a favorite of amateur and academic theatre troupes.