Seamstress weaves magic for student actors
Posted on 23 February 2007
The golden wedding dresses they wear in the Out of the Blue Theatre Company’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, were fashioned by Mrs Lai Ying Chan, who runs a shop in Fishergate, York.
Mad Forest is the second project for the University of York company at the York Theatre Royal and their second production of a play by Caryl Churchill. It follows the lives of two families before and after the 1989 revolution in Romania, when the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed.
Anna and Heloise play two daughters who marry in the play - one to an American, the other to a revolutionary young Romanian artist. The play explores the private and public tensions of the families, their political differences and the attempts to thwart young love.
The collaboration with [Mrs Chan] has been a big success, the cast have loved working with her, and we very much hope that we'll be able to work with her again
Mary Luckhurst
The Out of the Blue Theatre Company was born out of the University’s drama initiative Writing and Performance which will move into the new Department of Theatre, Film and TV at the University in autumn this year.
Mad Forest director Mary Luckhurst said: "The dresses were especially made for us by Mrs Chan, the celebrity seamstress in Fishergate. Everyone knows her and Silk Stitch, her business, which has saved the day for all sorts of busy working mothers and those of us who can’t sew.
"I don’t think anyone had ever thought of asking her about making costumes. But the collaboration with her has been a big success, the cast have loved working with her, and we very much hope that we’ll be able to work with her again."
Mary Luckhurst chose the play because it offers immense challenges to young actors and it was students who provided the momentum for the Revolution in 1989 - many gave their lives to free their country from dictatorship.
"We all tend to take our freedom of speech for granted in Britain and we cannot imagine the privations that the Romanian people suffered for so long. It contains actual testimony gathered from Romanians only two months after the Revolution, and audiences will find it very moving," she said.
"I’ve tried to maintain the documentary aspects of the play and used film and still photographs projected onto a backcloth to remind audiences that events were real. Remarkably there is someone in York who teaches Romanian dance and the cast learned how to do it!"
Notes to editors:
- Mad Forest by the Out of the Blue Theatre Company. Directed by Mary Luckhurst. York Theatre Royal, 27 February to 3 March at 7.45 (matinee on 3 March at 2.30)
- Out of the Blue was set up in 1999 by Mary Luckhurst and Michael Cordner, co-directors of the University of York’s drama initiative Writing and Performance. Since 1999 Mary Luckhurst and Michael Cordner have directed both contemporary experimental and classical drama, and have developed a national reputation for the high professional standards of their student actors, directors, and production crews. Industry professionals such as Penelope Wilton, David Edgar, and Marks and Gran give regular masterclasses and Max Stafford-Clark is Associate Professor. In 2006 Mary Luckhurst was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy for her outstanding contribution to drama training and research. The Writing and Performance initiative is moving into a new Department of Theatre, Film and TV at the University of York which begins running graduate degrees in the autumn of 2007.