Aria da Capo

In Short

This one-act play begins as a superficial, witty farce between two lovers, Pierrot and Columbine, who dine in a black-and-white world of meaningless chatter. Their scene is interrupted by a somber figure, Cothurnus, who demands they make way for a darker performance. Two shepherds, Corydon and Thyrsis, emerge to act out a play within a play. Their innocent pastoral life is quickly dismantled by a game of building a wall, which escalates into suspicion, greed, and murder. The play has endured for its searing, timeless critique of how societal structures manufacture conflict and how easily we ignore the dead to resume our comfort.

The Story

The curtain rises on Pierrot and Columbine, two figures in a stylized, black-and-white setting, dining on macaroons and wine. Their dialogue is brittle and hollow; Pierrot is restless and cynical, constantly reinventing himself as a painter, a socialist, or a manager, while Columbine plays the role of the devoted, slightly bewildered partner. Their empty, repetitive bantering about love and food is abruptly cut short by the arrival of Cothurnus, a grim master of the stage. Despite Pierrot's protests, Cothurnus insists the time for his play has arrived.

Pierrot and Columbine exit, and the shepherds, Corydon and Thyrsis, take the stage. They are simple, earnest men who intend to spend an hour singing songs and watching their sheep. However, Cothurnus, acting as a cold, detached prompter, forces them into a tragedy. He tells them to build a wall between them, a tissue-paper barrier that symbolizes ownership and division.

What begins as a game of "yours" and "mine" quickly turns malicious. Thyrsis controls the water; Corydon, seeking to outdo him, discovers "jewels" in the soil and becomes consumed by greed, declaring himself a merchant and eventually an emperor. As they stop seeing each other as friends and start seeing each other as obstacles, the wall becomes a genuine psychological barrier. Fear replaces affection. Thyrsis, driven by hatred and the discovery of a poisonous weed, plots to kill Corydon, while Corydon plans to betray Thyrsis to recover his lost resources.

The climax is swift and brutal. Thyrsis offers Corydon a drink of "water" (poison), and Corydon strangles Thyrsis with the very paper ribbons that formed their wall. As they both die, their final realization is one of profound, pathetic regret—they cannot even remember why they played the game.

Cothurnus, unmoved, closes his prompt-book, shoves their bodies under the table, and covers them with a tablecloth. He exits, and the scene resets to the beginning. Pierrot and Columbine return, oblivious. When they notice the bodies under the table, they are momentarily shocked, but at Cothurnus’s off-stage command to "pull down the tablecloth" and "hide them," they comply without hesitation. They return to their seats, and the play begins again, with the same lines about macaroons and Tuesdays, perfectly erasing the tragedy that lies beneath them.

How It Unfolds

The interruption of the farce Pierrot and Columbine are caught in an endless loop of meaningless, cynical banter over a banquet table. Their world is shattered when the austere figure of Cothurnus arrives, commanding the actors to vacate the stage for a darker necessity.

The pastoral illusion Corydon and Thyrsis enter, hoping for a peaceful hour of companionship and song. They are quickly coerced by the relentless prompter into abandoning their gentle nature to perform a play of division.

The construction of the wall The shepherds weave a barrier of colored ribbons, initially as a lighthearted game of boundaries. This simple act of separation marks the beginning of their transformation from friends into suspicious, territorial rivals.

The rot of ambition The discovery of "jewels" in the dirt shifts the conflict from mere access to water to the pursuit of power. Corydon becomes obsessed with wealth, while Thyrsis descends into a murderous hatred born of petty resentment.

The lethal endgame Trapped by the roles they have been forced to play, the shepherds resort to poisoning and strangulation. They die in confusion, realizing too late that the game was entirely hollow and unnecessary.

The cycle resets Cothurnus hides the corpses beneath the banquet table, and the original actors return to their superficial roles. Pierrot and Columbine acknowledge the bodies only long enough to hide them, choosing the comfort of their farce over the reality of the tragedy.

The People

Pierrot and Columbine are caricatures of indifference. Pierrot is a bored aesthete who finds life exhausting and people annoying; he treats existence as a performance, constantly changing his personality to stave off existential dread. Columbine is his foil—stupid, charming, and utterly dependent on the status quo. They represent the passive, comfortable society that prefers to hide the "mess" of conflict under a tablecloth rather than confront the consequences of the systems they live within.

Corydon and Thyrsis are fundamentally good, simple men who are destroyed by the roles they are forced to inhabit. Initially, they are defined by their friendship and their shared pastoral life. However, once the "game" of the wall begins, they are manipulated by their own fears and the promptings of Cothurnus. They represent the common person who, under the influence of nationalism or greed, turns against their neighbor. They die not as villains, but as victims of a scripted conflict they were too weak to reject.

Cothurnus is the most chilling figure—the embodiment of the unseen forces that dictate the scripts of history and war. He is not malicious; he is merely professional and detached. He views the death of the shepherds as a "scene" to be played out, handled, and then cleared away to ensure the show continues. He represents the cold, impersonal machinery of authority that orchestrates human suffering for a purpose the actors themselves do not understand.

In Its Own Voice

The play begins with the superficial, hollow banter that masks the cruelty to come:

“My only love, / You are so intense! . . . Is it Tuesday, Columbine?— / I’ll kiss you if it’s Tuesday.”

Pierrot says this to Columbine while they are dining, establishing their shallow, repetitive relationship.

The shepherds articulate the tragedy of their situation as they realize the game has become too real:

“Oh, Thyrsis, now for the first time I feel / This wall is actually a wall, a thing / Come up between us, shutting you away / From me. . . . I do not know you any more!”

Corydon says this to his friend when he realizes that their arbitrary game of division has destroyed their ability to recognize each other’s humanity.

What It's Really About

This play is a searing indictment of the absurdity and cruelty of war. It strips away the pomp and patriotism often used to justify conflict, showing instead that the "game" of division—the wall, the borders, the claims to resources—is a fabrication that turns friends into killers. It suggests that our societal structures are like a play directed by invisible, indifferent forces, and that we are all too willing to play along as long as we are fed. The ultimate argument is that unless we refuse to play the game of "yours" and "mine," we are doomed to repeat the same cycle of senseless violence, burying our dead under the table so we can continue our pleasant, empty lives.

Why Read It Today

Aria da Capo feels strikingly modern, despite its Edwardian roots. Readers who appreciate the biting, absurdist wit of Samuel Beckett or the dark, allegorical theater of the early twentieth century will find this work both familiar and deeply unsettling. It is a brief, punchy read that moves with the rhythm of a nightmare; it does not waste a word, and its central image—the paper wall that becomes an impenetrable barrier—remains a haunting metaphor for how we construct the divisions that destroy us.

The language is highly stylized and can occasionally feel archaic, especially in the shepherds' pastoral dialogue, but this distance only serves to sharpen the play's brutal conclusion. It is not a "comfortable" book; it is designed to prick the conscience. It captures the exact feeling of watching a society drift toward catastrophe while those in charge—and those distracted by their own minor luxuries—simply look the other way. For anyone who has ever wondered how civilized people could possibly descend into the madness of conflict, this play provides an answer that is as honest as it is chilling. You will likely finish it in a single sitting, but the final image of the tablecloth being pulled down will remain with you far longer.