SLP High's One-Act Plays Plum Dark Literary Themes

The St. Louis Park High theater program is delving into the darker side of of the American short story this weekend, with three one-act plays based on classic texts.

• The adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1954 story “All Summer in a Day” takes place in Bradbury’s imagined future, when humans inhabit Venus. The climate is a constant barrage of rain, but every seven years the sun emerges for a few precious hours.  A group of schoolchildren experience this reprieve for the first time in their memory, basking in the sun while a classmate remains trapped in the shadows. 

• In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” adapted by Brainerd Duffield, the villagers of a small town gather for their annual Summer raffle.  Each family takes its turn drawing from the ominous block box, extracting the lot that determines their fate.

• Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” adapted by Katy Mulvaney, depicts a young mother restricted to bed rest, the common treatment for post-partum depression in the 1890s. The woman, confined to a room in her summer rental, becomes obsessed with its patterned yellow wallpaper.