Director Cynthia Marsh now had more confidence and experience in knowing what was achievable, so the group, which encompassed students from all years, tackled virtually the whole play.
Chekhov’s three sisters, Olga, Masha and Irina are disenchanted with their life in a small provincial town, and dream of returning to Moscow. Editing the script was a complicated process, as Cynthia Marsh recalls:
“Producing the script was difficult. We had something like two computers in the department at that point, and there were no online scripts (certainly not Russian ones) which you could work with and edit. I used to photocopy the Russian script, edit it, and cut it up to remove all the excluded bits. Then I would stick it back together again, getting covered in glue in the process. After that, I would ask one of the Russian lectrices to help me put the stress marks in, and then make multiple photocopies. It used to take ages! But it was all very worthwhile, when you saw what progress could be made in spoken Russian.”
Top left: Members of the backstage team hard at work preparing the costumes.
Top right: David Neeley as Feodotik; Giles Amos as Baron Tuzenbakh; Peter Holding as Andrei and Marie-Claire Hodges as Irina.
Bottom left: (left to right) Cynthia Marsh; Roger Ringrose; Peter Holding; Corrie Moss and Sean Fitzgerald rehearse in the Performing Arts Studio.
Bottom right: Virginia Delaney as Masha and Roger Ringrose as Vershinin.