The Anastasia File – Theatre Royal, Windsor
One of the twentieth century’s most enduring historical mysteries provides rich material for ‘The Anastasia File’, Royce Ryton’s drama exploring the extraordinary story of Anna Manahan, the woman who spent decades claiming to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, the supposedly murdered daughter of Tsar Nicholas II.
Following the execution of the Romanov family in 1918, the play moves to Berlin two years later, where a traumatised young woman is rescued from a canal and subsequently placed in an institution. Gradually, details emerge that suggest she may be the surviving Anastasia. From there, questions of memory, identity, trauma and inheritance begin to intertwine as those around her attempt to establish whether she is a survivor of unimaginable brutality or an extraordinarily convincing im...
