Plays

Some of the girls from the family home were recently in two plays put on by the orphanage drama department.  The first was  “Snyegurichka”.  Since I know several versions of the story and my conversational Russian is pretty good I thought it would be simple to understand.   Here’s the gist:  a grandma and grandpa lived in the woods and didn’t have any children.  They were lonely and made a beautiful snow maiden who came to life.  They called her “Snyegurichka”.  She didn’t know what love was, then one day she fell in love.  The warmth of the love caused her to melt.  My Russian and Snegurichka knowledge didn’t help at all.  I was totally clueless almost the whole play.  Our girls were good, though!

Afterwards I asked the actors what it was about and they consoled me,  “Don’t worry Nicola, we didn’t understand it either.”

The second play was “The Little Prince”.  Zina and Luda were in it.  Zina was the Prince.  It was fantastic – much better than I dreamed it would be.  (I understood it too!)  Zina is quite the actress, and the props, although simple, were amazingly effective.  For example, each child wearing a glove on one hand became a very convincing snake, and small fabric bracelets added to their base costume made a believable tree and row of rosebushes.  Here is a photo.

 Zina (front) as the Little Prince