Sewell Barn Theatre, Constitution Hill, Norwich NR3 4BB               Ticket sales: 0333 666 3366                  Sewell Barn Trust: Registered Charity No 277724

The Sewell Barn Company

Auditioning for the Sewell Barn

Audition notice:  Three Russian Encounters

THE YALTA GAME & AFTERPLAY by Brian Friel (after Chekhov)

THE SWANSONG by Anton Chekhov translated by Marian Fell

Director: Tony Fullwood : fullwoodthomas@ntlworld.com

Performance dates :  25 –27 November, 1 – 4 December, including a matinee on 4 December 2021

THE PLAYS & THE ROLES

The two Friel plays are long one-acters. The Yalta Game has 25 pages and lasts about 45 minutes, Afterplay has c30 pages and lasts a little longer. Each play has just two characters so they all have plenty of lines.

Chekhov’s The Swansong will form an epilogue: it plays about 15 minutes and also has two characters.

THE YALTA GAME is described by Friel as ‘based on a theme in Chekhov’s short story ‘The Lady with the Lapdog’.

Holidaying away from his family by the Black Sea, Dimitry Gurov meets Anna Sergeyevna, holidaying away from her husband, and they begin an affair that gradually comes to dominate their lives. They play ‘the Yalta Game’ of imagining the lives of those around them and in doing so they invent their own story.

Gurov: about 40 – bored, experienced and always on the lookout for a new ‘conquest’.

Anna : 20s – not as naïve as she first appears, but more dissatisfied with her life than she knows.

In AFTERPLAY, characters from two different Chekhov plays meet in a shabby Moscow café in the early 1920s - ie. c20 years after the events of the original plays - Sonya Serebriakova from Uncle Vanya and Andrey Prozorov from Three Sisters.

Sonya has come to Moscow to consult the Ministry of Agriculture about the family farm she now runs alone. Andrey purports to be a violinist at the Opera House but in fact he comes to Moscow every month to see his jailed son. He covers his costs by busking.

Sonya is in her 40s. ‘She appears to be a controlled, determined and efficient woman.’

Andrey is late 40s. ‘Because of his shyness he smiles a lot – a very unreliable guide to what he is really thinking.’

The tone of both plays is tragi-comic as Friel, ‘the Irish Chekhov’, writes characters who create stories, ‘fictions’, around themselves to help them find the ‘fortitude’ to survive life’s disappointments. Audiences do not need to know the Chekhov plays.

THE SWANSONG (Chekhov) On the stage of a country theatre following his benefit night, Vasili Svietlovidoff, an ageing actor, having fallen asleep in his dressing-room, wakes to find everyone has gone home. His cries rouse the Prompter, Nikita Ivanitch, so poor he sleeps at the theatre. With him, Svietlovidoff reflects on past triumphs and considers his doubtful future.

The role of Vasili Svietlovidoff has been pre-cast.

Nikita is written as an old man but could be played by any gender and any age.

All the roles demand immersive character acting using Stanislavsky’s principles.

AUDITION DATES:

2 September 5pm-7pm

3 September 5pm-8pm

4 September 10am-12 noon

Individual auditions on these dates by arrangement with the director. Please contact by email - fullwoodthomas@ntlworld.com - to request an audition time.

REHEARSALS start w/c 4th October

The two Friel plays are published in Faber’s Three Plays After ISBN: 0571217613. Used copies are currently available from Abe Books : ISBN 10: 0571217613 / 

ISBN 13: 9780571217618, World of Books and musicMagpie.

There is also a reprint by Gallery Books: ISBN : 9781852353179.

The Swansong is available online at : Swan Song, by Anton Checkov (gutenberg.org)

NB: We intend to tinker with this script to improve fluency.

Please try to read the plays before auditioning.