Theatre Department to present ‘The Ghost Sonata’

WINONA, Minn. — Ghosts walk in bright daylight, a beautiful woman is transformed into a mummy and lives in a closet, and the household cook sucks all the nourishment out of the food before she serves it to her victims in the next Saint Mary’s University Department of Theatre Arts presentation March 1-5.
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“The Ghost Sonata,” is one of Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s famous chamber plays. He bases the structure of the play on the sonata, with three movements instead of acts.

The play delves into the psyche, casts away superficial masks and reveals that which desires to be hidden: our skeletons in the closet, our private nightmares and ghosts. Strindberg said that when he wrote the play, his hands bled.

He originally subtitled his play "Kama-Loka," the name of a mystical dream world through which some mortals have to wander before reaching the kingdom of death in the afterlife. Accordingly, the characters in “The Ghost Sonata” speak, move and act as if they are part of a dream — or a nightmare. One sees anxious glimpses of the future, another embodies tragedies from the past.

The haunting drama was groundbreaking for its time for its use of Freudian imagery, and it was an important pre-cursor of expressionism, surrealism and absurdist theatre.

Director Steven Bouler said, “Ultimately the play is about corruption and anxiety, regrets and how we are transformed by those we encounter in life.”

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, March 1-3, and Monday, March 5. A matinee is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday, March 4 — all at the Valéncia Arts Center’s Academy Theatre, located at 10th and Vila streets.

Tickets are $8 or $6 for students and seniors and are available at the Performance Center box office, (507) 457-1715, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays or online at wwww.pagetheatre.org.