While he sang the Governess, played as a pretty, demure young woman by the soprano Sara Jakubiak, listened attentively to the uncle, whom we only see from behind, sitting at his desk.
In "The Sound of Music," the beloved 1965 movie, Maria, the governess played by Julie Andrews, turned old curtains into play clothes for the seven von Trapp children, just as the real Maria had done.
The same evidence of dashed intentions comes across in matters domestic (in the chaotic rearing of Herzen's children, despite a resolute German governess, played by the Jennifer Ehle) and epochal (the freeing of the serfs in Russia in 1861).
These include the idealistic Trofimov (Chris Messina), the passionate, ungainly student in love with Ranyevskaya's beautiful daughter (Jessica Chastain); Carlotta, the flamboyantly eccentric governess played with dry understatement by Brenda Wehle; and the narcoleptic landowner given such astutely obtuse life by Lee Wilkof.
In the show, the governess Maria, played by Martin, dresses the von Trapp children in clothing made from curtains.
Part-developed characters – an outlandishly neglectful mother and uncle, a doctor, a governess (nicely played by Alexandra Roach, almost unrecognisable from last year's acclaimed Channel 4 series Utopia) – were too carelessly dispensed with, while less likely others (not least a third "twin" of uncertain provenance) were recruited in what resembled desperate haste.
She was playing the Governess, and her ability to identify with the part owed something psychologically to the fact that she was pregnant at the time.
At the time, Ms. Andrews's public image was of the endlessly cheerful governess she had played in "The Sound of Music".
The former "American Idol" winner, who played governess and would-be nun Maria Von Trapp, was the first to be dropped from several people's favorite things list because of her novice acting chops.
As the children are playing indoors, the Governess sees the man again, gazing in at the window.
