This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters & Air Raid

Core Performance Manufactory presents two plays by Archibald MacLeish, Air Raid, written in 1938, and This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters, written in 1953. One deals with global politics, the other focuses on intimate relationships. One is populated by ordinary villagers, the other with the sophisticated and wealthy. In one, people’s souls cannot be conquered, so they are killed. In the other, the souls are destroyed, but the bodies live on.

The island vacationers of This Music have sought to leave their mundane world behind them. The villagers of Air Raid are rooted to the land they occupy – the land they have lived on for hundreds of years. The island paradise of This Music is unbearably beautiful. It inspires its visitors to think of connecting with creation, to become transformed, to create beauty and art. In the end, though, they are all unchanged.

In both plays, there is the tension between the ideal of living in the here and now, and typical living that defers hopes and dreams to some time in the future. In both works, at least some of the characters speak of the ideal of living in the here and now. But MacLeish seems to have a strong sense that humans are creaures of the Fall. Our innocence has been lost, and cannot be regained.

Additional Schedule Information:

The opening performance on Wednesday, January 10 begins at 7:30pm.
A 2:00pm matinee is scheduled for Sunday, January 21.