The little country theaterArvold, Alfred G. (Alfred Gilmeiden)
General
The little country theater
Arvold, Alfred G. (Alfred Gilmeiden)
Little Country Theater (Fargo, N.D.); Little theater movement; Theater -- North Dakota -- Fargo
It is a beautiful thought and exceptionally well worked out in the play.
The raindrops are brothers. One’s name is Sveinn. He lives in Iceland.
The other is Snorri. His home is America. Snorri crosses the ocean to
tell Sveinn about America. Upon his arrival he meets a girl named Asta
and falls in love with her, little thinking that she is the betrothed
of his brother Sveinn. Asta is a beautiful girl. She has large blue eyes
and light hair which she wears in a long braid over her left shoulder. In
act three, when speaking to Asta, Snorri says, “Sometimes I think I am
the raindrop that fell on the other side of the ridge, and that my place
may be there; but then I think of the many things I have learned to love
here—the beautiful scenery, the midnight sun, the simple and unaffected
manners of the people, their hospitality, and probably more than anything
else some of the people I have come to know. A few of these especially I
have learned to love.”
It does not dawn upon Snorri that Asta has given her hand to his brother
Sveinn until the fourth and last act of the play. The scene is a most
impressive one. It was something the authors had painted themselves.
At the right stands the quaint little sky-blue cottage, with its long
corrugated tin roof. To the left, the stony cliffs rise. In the distance
the winding road, the tumbling waterfall, and snow-capped mountain can
be seen. Near the doorway of the cottage there is a large rock on which
Asta often sits in the full red glow of the midnight sun.
As the curtain goes up Snorri enters, looks at his watch, and utters
these words, “They are all asleep, but I must see her to-night.” He
gently goes to the door, quietly raps, turns and looks at the scenery,
and says: “How beautiful are these northern lights! I’ve seen them before
stretching like a shimmering curtain across the northern horizon, with
tongues of flame occasionally leaping across the heavens; but here they
are above me, and all around me, till they light up the scene so that
I can see even in the distance the rugged and snow-capped hills miles
away. How truly the Icelandic nation resembles the country—like the old
volcanoes which, while covered with a sheet of ice and snow, still have
burning underneath, the eternal fires.”
Asta then appears in the doorway and exclaims, “Snorri.” After an
exchange of greetings they sit down and talk. Snorri tells Asta of his
love and finally asks her to become his wife. Asta is silent. She turns
and looks at the northern lights, then bows her head and with her hands
carelessly thrown over her knees she tells him that it cannot be—that it
is Sveinn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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