Gallathea
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Gallathea is a rarely performed play by John Lyly. It was written for the boys of St. Paul's School, and performed around 1590 for Queen Elizabeth I.
More recently, a production directed by Brett Sullivan Santry, a graduate student in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, was performed by the students of Stuart Hall School of Staunton, Virginia. It ran from the second to the fifth of February, 2007.[1]
[edit] Plot Synopsis
A small village somewhere in Greece is forced by Neptune to sacrifice their most beautiful virgin to him every five years, or he will drown them all. The chosen virgin must be tied to a certain tree to await her fate at the hands of the Agar, a terrible monster. The fathers of the two most beautiful virgins of the village, Gallathea and Phillida, decide to disguise them as boys until after the sacrifice. Both girls are then sent off into the woods. Meanwhile, in an almost completely unrelated subplot, three brothers set off to seek their fortune. One, Rafe, gets a few comic relief scenes through the rest of the play. Also at the same time, the god Cupid is wandering through the same forest when he happens upon a nymph of Diana. He resolves to trick all of the nymphs into falling in love, despite their vows of chastity. Predictably, all three of the nymphs shown fall in love with either Gallathea and Phillida, whom Diana has forced to assist in her hunt. The rest of the plot revolves around the relationship between Gallathea and Phillida, who, both believing the other to be a boy, fall in love with each other. Love, hate, sacrifices, divine intervention, hilarity, and bad job opportunities ensue.
