'Lady MacDuff'. Let me start off by saying that I think this is excellent! Of course as I read along my heart begins to break a little since I get sucked into the drama as it unfolds and knowing exactly where it is destined to lead. But that also makes it compelling. In a way I'm sorry to have read this because I too have been writing away (and posting on here in case you care to read), and always fear the possibility of some subconscious forgery spilling onto my own work...especially since I too will eventually have to create scenes involving their final days at the Ipatiev House.
But anyway, you really seemed to get into character nicely and although I'm not an expert the language seems very appropriate. If I had one general criticism it's that I think your ending is a bit rushed. In one sense I'm relieved by not having to read the awful details. But also think the end comes rather sudden. Do you think you'll be adding a bit more? They spent at least twenty minutes in the basement before Yurovsky and the guards reentered the room to carry out the murder. I'd like to hear some more dialogue, whispers perhaps, from the daughters and perhaps the other seven people in their finals minutes. You could cut it off as the guards reenter the room and still spare us the details of the killing.
Otherwise I think it's very good. Some additional nitpicking below. Hope this is of some use to you...
ANASTASIA - 17, short, chunky, the only one with bangs.
Surely this is based off of something her mother said about Anastasia having put on weight "to her great dismay", or something along those lines. Yet with the little that we have seen in pictures over their last several months alive I really don't see it as being a defining physical characteristic. She looked pretty average to me. When giving the description of their former captive did any of the guards ever comment on her supposed stockiness?
MARIA: Go back to sleep, Olenka, it’s all right.
Sounds a bit brusk for sweet Marie, no? Telling her eldest sister to go to bed without even greeting her with a little, "Oh, hi Olga, we were just chatting but it's all right. You can go back to sleep, sorry for waking you."
TATIANA: Hush yourselves. You’ll wake Baby.
You might be correct with this but I'm curious, were they still referring to Alexei as "Baby" by this point? He was nearly fourteen years old after all. I know they doted on him and his weakened state made him probably seem more like a helpless child than would ordinarily be the case.
MARIA: Papa did the best he could.
OLGA: I don’t believe that.
TATIANA: Olga Nikolaevna, that’s treason.
I suppose the sake of this play of yours this is an acceptable transition, but as it were to mirror reality I do find it rather hard to believe that Olga wouldn't have already spoken to her favorite sister and lifelong confidant about her feelings regarding her father. This makes Tatiana's aggressive "that's treason" reaction, as though she is shocked to hear such words come out of the mouth of her sister, seem a bit overdone to me. My opinion only of course but if I were editor I would recommend changing it to something along the lines of..."TATIANA: Olga, please. Don't start with that again. Especially in front of our sisters."
OLGA: I don’t know. I know I’ll never leave Russia. Maybe I’ll become a nun, found a convent like Auntie Ella. I don’t know who’d want to marry me after this.
I know she was dead set against leaving Russia years earlier, but do you think this would still have been her position after sixteen months in captivity, her father deposed, country turned upside down and with the apparent knowledge that so many of her fellow citizens hated the imperial family? I wonder aloud.
ANASTASIA: Oh, stop being so glum. Plenty of men are going to want to marry our Mashka. The way she flirts with the guards, I’m surprised she hasn’t had any proposals already.
Her flirting was a source of tension for the family particularly after her "private moment" with one of the guards. I believe she was shunned for a time by Olga and Alexandra, and perhaps to a lesser degree Tatiana as well if memory serves me correctly. Would Anastasia have really brought this up again? Maybe, she was the "Imp" after all, but still.
TATIANA: I don’t think any of us are ever going to see England, Nastya.
ANASTASIA: Why not? Isn’t that the closest safe place?
TATIANA: Papa’s cousin Georgie refused to have us. You know that.
ANASTASIA: Such pig and filth.
OLGA: He has to think of his people, too, and how they would react to his saving us. We’re hated all over Europe.
How much did they know of their being denied exile by George V? And would they have fully grasped the reasons as to why?
