By Dave
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23fpdOl28lk
Available until: Unknown
We’ve known about The Far Away Plays for a while but this is only the second time we’ve actually watched one. I doubt it will be the last. Judging from the standard of this play, we’ve missed some really great performances.
This version of This is the Play Without a Title was
written by Simon Harris but it’s actually based on a play by Anton Chekhov.
Chekhov didn’t much like it, it was never performed in his lifetime and he
thought it had been destroyed but his sister had hidden it. After Chekhov’s
death the play was rediscovered and performed. The work was untitled but an
article in the Sydney Theatre magazine suggests it might have originally been
called Fatherlessness, and it has been presented under many titles
including A Long Play Without a Title, Chekhov’s First Play, Platonov,
which is the name of the character at the centre of it all, and rather more
confusingly, Wild Honey in an adaptation by Michael Frayn. Chekhov’s
other works include A Story Without a Title so maybe that influenced the
sort of title this play is usually given.
