Huntingdon Drama Club has announced that it has entered the Cambridge Festival of Drama with its interpretation of one of the Checkhov farces.
The club will be showcasing its production of Swan Song at the festival which takes place in September.
The Drama Club returns to the Cambridge festival for the first time since 2017 and will be staging its performance on the opening night – Thursday, September 15.
Anton Chekhov’s short play Swan Song was presented in May this year as part of the club’s production Five Farces – a quintet of Chekhov comedies adapted by local actor, writer and chair of Shakespeare at The George, Richard Brown.
The play is centred on a veteran actor who wakes up in a theatre, long after the audience, and his fellow actors, have left the building.
Thinking he is alone, he laments on his career until a figure from the past emerges from the wings of the stage with a bit of a surprise.
In an interview on the club’s website, Richard describes Swan Song as his favourite of the five plays.
His adaptation changes the dynamic of the story from that of a rather heavy duologue between an actor and his male prompt into a wistful tale of unrequited love, with more than its fair share of laughs.
Directed by James Barwise and starring Brown as the actor and Madeleine Forrester as the prompt, Sardines magazine described Swan Song as “the high spot of the evening” with the two actors “very well attuned to each other”.
Huntingdon Drama Club’s Swan Song will appear at the Cambridge Festival of Drama on Thursday, September 15 from 7.45pm. The Festival runs at the ADC Theatre, in Cambridge from September 15-17, and tickets are available now from the ADC website.
Huntingdon Drama Club's November production will be Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the novel by Thomas Kenneally. Performances will take place from November 20-26 and rehearsals start on Monday and Thursday evenings from Monday August 29 at 7.30pm.
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