The repertoire associated with high school drama departments has historically comprised familiar and mostly lighthearted fare. Sure, parents and family members experience occasional flashes of darkness through "Twelve Angry Men" or "Fiddler on the Roof," but there are plenty more feel-good presentations of "Shrek," "Almost, Maine," "South Pacific" and "Arsenic and Old Lace."

Bottom line: you don't see too many plays from typically intense New London native Eugene O'Neill in the Grades One-through-Twelve canon.

It's intriguing, then, that Falcon Theatre, the drama club at Fitch High School in Groton, will present O'Neill's "Beyond the Horizon" at 7 p.m. tonight and Saturday and at 1 p.m. Sunday in the school's auditorium. It opened Thursday.

The play, about two very different brothers bound by affection whose relationship begins to unravel against a backdrop of escalating tragedy, won the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was O'Neill's first full-length work and helped established a thematic and moody precedent for future works such as "The Iceman Cometh," "Moon for the Misbegotten" and "Long Day's Journey into Night."

"How can you not want to explore O'Neill? He's from New London, right next door," says Sean Arcarese, who runs the Fitch drama department and is the production's director. "I think it's a mistake, particularly in this area, for students to not be familiar with O'Neill. He won four Pulitzers and was awarded the first-ever Nobel literature prize for drama."

Arcarese, in his third year at the school, has also helmed productions of "Macbeth" and "Beckett" and says, "I'm extremely invested in what a student learns from the experience of one of these plays. I'm also humbled by these kids because they're talented and eager to explore what staging something like 'Beyond the Horizon' or 'Macbeth' says about life."

In that spirit, and having become fascinated by the works of O'Neill while a student in college, Arcarese believes the dramatist addresses a lot of provocative issues. But there's a also a question of what's appropriate for the age group.

"It IS O'Neill, after all," Arcarese laughs. "He writes with great insight, but we also have to be aware of what's suitable — and that's why 'Beyond the Horizon' is ideal. There's no drinking, for one, and the language is pretty clean and not too harsh. At the same time, it's still deeply tragic — which is an emotion young people respond to because they're not frequently exposed to it at this point in life. They love the edgy stuff, and we're presenting a safe place to explore that." 

Arcarese says the Fitch administration has been completely supportive of the productions and subject matter, and that undertaking something like "Beyond the Horizon" works on a lot of levels.

"A production like this requires a lot of cast and crew cooperation that goes further than a lot of more familiar and lighter stuff," Arcarese explains. "It's not just memorizing lines; there's a lot of context that dips into history and language, for example. We have a few master classes to discuss everything from the story and character development to the nautical terms O'Neill used and how people spoke in that era.

"At a certain point, the kids develop a sort of momentum and the whole experience becomes pretty comprehensive. I'm lucky to get to work with these guys because they're invested. After what they put into a production like this, I promise you they're ready for a college drama department. And while I want the audience to have a enjoyable time, at the heart of it all, I'm most interested in how this works for the kids."