This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the playwright August Strindberg.

To celebrate the life of Strindberg, the Theatre Arts Department will be performing two of Strindberg’s one-act plays, “Mother Love” and “The Stronger.”

The plays will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday in the Black Box Theatre of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The group will also be performing this show at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Armory Free Theatre at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Chris Mitchell, the director of Strindberg Café, said the two plays are some of Strindberg’s lesser know plays, but still celebrate the playwright’s life.

“This is a big year for Strindberg,” Mitchell said. “There is kind of a world wide celebration of Strindberg.”

Mitchell said theaters across the world are doing different things to commemorate Strindberg’s life.

U of I will be performing a production of “A Dream Play.”

“We are working with U of I to coordinate being a part of the celebration together,” Mitchell said.

Grace Munoz, a sophomore theatre arts major and a psychology major, said she is excited to perform at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“I haven’t been to U of I since high school theatre fest and it’ll be fun to go back and perform for an audience that isn’t Eastern,” Munoz said.

“The Stronger” is about 15 minutes long while “Mother Love” is about 30 minutes.

Michell said they have changed the setting of the plays.

“The Stronger” is set in Havana, Cuba, in the 1950s, while “Mother Love” will be set in a seaside resort on St. Barths in the Caribbean in the 1950s.

“Mother Love” is about the struggle between a mother, a daughter and the mother’s dresser.

The mother is trying to control the daughter’s life, and she is trying to live a life of her own.

“The Stronger” is about the power struggle between two women.

Munoz will be playing the role of a dresser in “Mother Love” and the role of Mrs. X in “The Stronger.”

Munoz said the daughter meets a new friend who encourages her to find new independence for herself.

“In the end, she realizes that she would rather be with her mother than find her independence,” Munoz said.

Munoz said during the play “The Stronger,” the two women compete for power throughout the play.

“The funny thing about that play is only one person talks throughout the entire play,” Munoz said.

Munoz’s character Mrs. X is the only character with dialogue.

At the end of the play, audience members will have to guess which woman is the strongest one.

“At the end of the play, we try really hard to have an ambiguous struggle with each other, and we don’t know who they are going to pick as the stronger person,” Munoz said. “We want to keep them guessing who is stronger.”

Mitchell said the plays’ characters are “typical Strindberg.”

“They have bold female characters in it,” Mitchell said. “With the exception of the waiter, these are all women shows.”

Tickets for the Eastern showing are $5 for students, $10 for audience members of 62 and older, and $12 for the general public.

Tickets for the the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showing are free.

Munoz said this is not something Eastern students usually see on campus.

“They can look forward to how different these plays are than anything EIU Theatre is going to do this year,” Munoz said. “These are two very short, very intimate classical plays that we’ve interrupted in our own ways.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].