| OXFORD
PROFESSOR DEBUTS PLAYS ON WJC CAMPUS
Oxford Professor Francis Warner's plays
Light Shadows and A Conception
of Love are being produced by William
Jewell College and will have their United
States premiere at the Peters Theater on
the William Jewell College campus. Light
Shadows will be performed April 6 at
2:00 p.m., April 8 at 2:00 p.m. and April
9 at 8:00 p.m. Performances of A Conception
of Love will be April 7 at 2:00 p.m.
and April 8 at 8:00 p.m. Call the WJC Box
Office at 816-415-7590 for ticket information.
In his Agora, a thirteen play sequence,
British playwright and Oxford professor
Francis Warner explores human interaction
during crucial moments in history. Divided
into plays of the ancient world and plays
of the modern world, Agora delves
into factors that encourage and block communication
among people. William Jewell Theatre is
excited about producing the United States
premiere of one play from the ancient series,
Light Shadows, and one from the modern
world, A Conception of Love. Both
plays examine definitions of love and power.
In Light Shadows, Warner telescopes
events to bring together the historical
characters Paul, Luke, Nero, Philo, Josephus,
Seneca, Lucan, Petronius, Tigellinus, Poppaea,
and Thecla, people with very different perceptions
of love. The debate and situation are heated
as Nero puts Paul on trial. In a centerpiece
banquet scene, copied somewhat after Plato's
Symposium, several of these central
characters argue what is the "seat"
of love.
Warner's exploration of what love is continues
in A Conception of Love. He sets
the action in a garden on the Oxford University
campus which is overseen by the Master of
the College, Griot, and the gardener, Broomy.
Oxford students and a young professor and
his most recent female partner explore what
friendship and love are with interesting
results. Broomy compares each of the characters
to a particular tree in the opening of the
play, but there are other character traits.
The four male characters represent the four
classical elements of air (Griot), earth
(Gan), water (Thalassios) and fire (Fashshar).
Three of the female characters represent
the three graces: spiritual love (Koinonia),
married love (Amatrix) and pleasure (Mara).
Warner is witty in bringing these contrasting
traits together. He adds to this wit in
naming his characters: Griot (story teller,
tradition keeper of the tribe), Gan ("garden"
in Hebrew, used for the Garden of Eden),
Thalassios ("the dweller by the sea"),
Fashshar ("from Arabic folk-literature"
to designate a "mischievous or scheming
person"), Mara (in Buddhist thought
the figure who tempts Buddha with a life
of passion), Koinonia (Greek for "friendship
or sharing"), Broomy (her thinness
and what she does-cleans up things).
In the tragedy (Light Shadows) and
the comedy (A Conception of Love),
Warner exhibits his appreciation of characters
and how they get tangled up in each other.
He understands the nature of both comedy
and tragedy and how, in many ways, they
are reverse mirrors of each other, or as
critic Northrup Frye puts it, "tragedy
is a kind of uncompleted comedy, and . .
. comedy always contains within itself a
potential tragedy".
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