University of Virginia Library

Va. Players Prepare
For Coming Season

By Russ Gustafson

The Virginia Players have announced
their schedule of plays for
the 1969-70 season. Mother Courage
and Her Children, by Bertolt
Brecht, will be the first production
of the year. Already cast and in the
rehearsal stages, Mother Courage
has been called Brecht's "most
passionate pl for pacifism." Anna
Fierling, nicknamed Mother Courage
by the soldiers, follows battle
after battle during the Thirty Years'
War in order to make a living. She
loses all three of her children
because of the war she lives off of,
but she curses peacetime in spite of
her loses.

Although Brecht intended Anna
Fierling to be a predatory parasite
and extender of war, it is ultimately
up to the audience to decide if she
is a camp follower or the spirit of
bravery and motherhood. The play,
scheduled for the week of October
27 - November 1, is being directed
by Paul Kuritz.

Pantagleize, by Michel de Ghelderode,
will be the second show of
the year. Described as "a farce to
make you cry," Pantagleize is a
tragicomedy of a modern day
Everyman who awakes on the
morning of a new revolution, of
which he becomes leader through
absurd circumstances. Pantagleize is
finally put to death by an automatized
and ridiculously inane
military government. The play will
run the week of Dec. 8-13.

Moliere's The Miser, scheduled
for the week of March 9-14, will be
the third production of the season.
Involved in the plot of this classic
French comedy are all the ingredients
of Restoration farce: young
lovers, forced marriage, foppish
gulls, slapstick, and a happy ending.

The fourth production, set for
the week of April 13-18, will be
announced later on in the year. It is
hoped that the show will be an
original by a student from the
University.

The final play of the year will be
The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter's
stark melodrama centered around
the inhabitants of a seedy coastal
boarding house. In The Birthday
Party, the honored guest is mysteriously
taunted, ridiculed, and
threatened to the point of insanity.

Season tickets are now available
for all five plays in Minor Hall,
ranging from $6 for Monday —
Thursday performances to $8 for
Friday — Saturday performances.
The box office is open from 2 to 5
p.m. weekly.