A Marriage Proposal

Tonight our entry for the St Andrew's One-Act Drama Festival is being performed in Booterstown, with our Transition Year travelling along to watch and support. Last night there was a final run-through in the BSR, in front of an audience during prep.

Anton Chekhov's A Marriage Proposal is a short farce written in 1888-9. Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov (Ben Armstrong, right in picture), arrives to ask his neighbour, landowner Stepan Stepanovitch Tschubukov (Ben Russell, left), for the hand of his daughter (Ellie Russell) in marriage. The two young 'lovers' can't help bickering - over land, dogs, anything. The play ends 'happily', with the two betrothed obviously destined for a quarrelsome life together.

Ronan Swift's inventive past-paced production opens with the strains of the allegretto from Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony 110a, and features excellent acting from all three performers, two with unfeasibly large eyelashes and two with splendid moustaches.