Theater

The Hunchback of Notre Dame Review Article by "Marco Bartoli"

Ever ambitious was Spring Grove's Drama Club to put on Victor Hugo's __The Hunchback of Notre Dame__ this past weekend. From well-polished seniors to up and coming freshmen actors, students came together to perform a show that enchanted its audience with a lesson on how you should never judge a book by its cover...or a deformed hunchback!

The general plot of the story is simple. The setting is France, around the time that its one hundred years of war and revolt have come to an end. It is a time of poverty, corrupt officials, segregation and, on the birghter side, reconstruction. The land is divided between the aristocrats, the wealthy people, peasants, those who could only afford the clothes on their backs, and gypsies, a group of people much like the peasants who earn coin through song and dance. On a dark evening, a gypsy is taken away by the town guard for committing no crime whatsoever, and her baby, a deformed son, is left to the mercy of the guards. Against his higher power's wishes, a guard ordered to kill the baby leaves it on the steps of the sacred church, Notre Dame. The child is taken in by the church and raised by the evil Archdeacon Frollo who keeps the hunchback, named Quasimodo, locked away inside the church bell tower where he can be of no distress to anybody. But when Quasimodo is prompted to experience the outsie world for the first time, the streets turn into chaos and suddenly it becomes was between the aristocrats and the peasant/gypsies. With the combined forces of Quasimodo, Esmerelda, the beautiful gypsy queen, and Gringoire, a starving playwright looking to change the public opinion of segregating one group of people from another, they attempt to take on Frollo, and prove to France that it doesn't matter what clothes you wear, what religion you are, or how you look; all that matters is what is on the inside and the love you show to one another.

It was this play that Spring Grove Area High School, with participation from several elementary and intermediate school students, performed for a total estimate of around four hundred people! Congratulations to the cast, crew, and "techies" for your marvelous work in the performance. And break a leg as you go __Into the Woods__ this coming Spring!

-Marco Bartoli (2010)