Maryknoll in Cambodia

Wat Than Skills Training Workshop

As part of their training, the young men and women who study at Wat Than all learn English. This year, at the instigation of an ex-pat teacher, they enthusiastically undertook a presentation of Charles Dickens' Oilver Twist.

With simple costuming and using the old woodworking workshop as a stage, the group put together an hour-long abbreviated version of the literary classic that really worked! It was really enjoyable!

Oliver Twist Presented by the Wat Than English Class

An overflow crowd for the performance
A former woodworking workshop turned reading room now became the stage. An overflow crowd of about 70 people came for this first-ever Wat Than production! Backstage before the show
The cast poses in costume before their first experience in any kind of a drama production.

Eating gruel at the poorhouse
Oliver Twist and the other children eat their guel at the poorhouse.
Fagan and his gang of thieves plot how to get Oliver Twist into their group.

The final curtain call
After the show the cast takes a bow, well-deserved according to the comments of the audience. I'm sure many of those in the mainly ex-pat audience (most Khmers would not know enough English to be interested) came to the play out of a sense of duty. But they were richly rewarded by a simple but very well planned production that was understandable and a grand testimony to many hours of hard work on the part of the English teachers as well as the student themselves. All the work was worth it to see the evident pride on the faces of the young people when they finished their first experience on stage in their whole life--and in English and before foreigners to boot!

A former woodworking workshop turned reading room now became the stage. An overflow crowd of about 70 people came for this first-ever Wat Than production!	The cast poses in costume before their first experience in any kind of a drama production.
Oliver Twist and the other children eat their guel at the poorhouse.	Fagan and his gang of thieves plot how to get Oliver Twist into their group.
After the show the cast takes a bow, well-deserved according to the comments of the audience.	I'm sure many of those in the mainly ex-pat audience (most Khmers would not know enough English to be interested) came to the play out of a sense of duty. But they were richly rewarded by a simple but very well planned production that was understandable and a grand testimony to many hours of hard work on the part of the English teachers as well as the student themselves. All the work was worth it to see the evident pride on the faces of the young people when they finished their first experience on stage in their whole life--and in English and before foreigners to boot!