PROSPECT PLAYHOUSE'S 'Romantic Triangle'
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See the article in its original context from August 1991.
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'A Romantic Triangle' consists of three one act plays, 'The Bear' and "The Marriage Proposal' by Anton Chekhov, interspersed with 'Red Carnations' by American Glenn Hughes.
Alan Hall, who is directing the Chekhov plays and has acted in many Drama Society productions including 'My Fair Lady', said that he felt the two amusing short plays would appeal to a Cayman audience, explaining that Chekhov's longer plays were much heavier.
'The Bear, (a joke in one act)', Mr. Hall likened to a French farce. Chekhov, who only lived until 44 years of age, wrote this play when 28, in the year of 1888 but remarked in later years that he was kept going financially by the royalties from this 'vaudeville'. The play pokes fun at people's attitudes towards each other. A landowner, Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov, played by Peter Riley, comes to collect some money from a widow tenant, Elena Ivanova Popova, played by Maureen Parker, still in mourning. This was at a time when Russia was feudal. The play examines the landowner's attitude towards women, the hypocrisy of the mourning widow and both of their attitudes towards her servant. The results proved to make the play the hilarious success that brought Chekhov more money than any of his other short stories.
'A Marriage Proposal' is also a lighthearted look at feudal Russia. A nervous young man Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, played by Peter Cook, calls upon his farmer neighbour, Stepan Stepanovich Tschubukov, played by John Gaylor, to ask for the hand of his daughter, Natalia, played by Betsy Leggatt, in marriage as he is too uptight to do it himself. His nervousness leads him and the plot into all sorts of amusing complications, before he finally plights his troth.
To break up the two Chekhov plays there is the contrast of, 'Red Carnation', directed by Samantha de Freitas and written by Glenn Hughes, the professor at the Department of Drama at the University of Washington. He wrote it in the 1920s at a time when the influence of the film idol, Rudolph Valentino was very strong. His character in the film 'The Sheikh' had a great impression on both young men and women of the 'roaring twenties'.
It is Miss de Freitas' directing debut, although she has appeared in many Drama Society productions, most recently in 'Murder Play'.
The setting for 'Red Carnations' is a park bench where two men, played by Paul de Freitas and Ward Scott, await the arrival of girls they have met recently. They start to chat and find out they have a lot in common. Both men met their girl at a masked ball, both were dressed as The Sheikh and both girls they met were disguised as the Queen of Sheba. When a girl, played by Emma Graham-Taylor, arrives at the park, the plot thickens as neither male nor female are quite sure who should be meeting who!
The Chekhov pieces are being performed in period costume and in their 19th century feudal setting. 'Red Carnation' is performed in modern dress.
This lighthearted evening of one act plays is running at the Prospect Playhouse at Red Bay tonight, 16 August and Saturday 17 August, 23, 24, 30 and 31 August as Dinner Theatre, price CI$25.
Auditorium performances run on Thursday 22 and 29 August, priced at $10 for adults, $6 for children. Performances commence at 7:30p.m. and tickets are available from Cayman Computing Ltd., telephone 98382.
