The Cherry Orchard

Synopsis

The Cherry Orchard premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904, on Chekhov's 44th birthday and only six months before his death. Overjoyed at being back at her large country house Madame Ranyevskaya is reassured to find the cherry orchard looking unchanged. But for how long? The family's wealth has gone and their only hope is to destroy the beloved orchard. The axes are ready to swing through the orchards of Russia ..

Our Review:

6 April 2010

The most challenging obstacle to a successful staging of Chekhov’s last play is its theme of inertia in a time of change. If a director is not careful, the torpor that infects these ineffectual Russian aristocrats can transmit itself to the audience as well.

Bruce Jamieson’s production has the merit of rattling through the play’s four acts in two hours, and that includes a pause for an interval snifter. In some respects this acceleration energises the drama, but it does so at the expense of incidental action (there are cuts) and that essential Chekhovian mood of idle languor.

Landowner Ranyevskaia returns with her family from a sojourn (and a lover) in France to reclaim her estate. She shrugs off warnings from peasant-made-good Lopakhin that her financial situation is parlous and she must sell off land in order to meet her mortgage. After all, what does this jumped-up serf know? All too much, she learns too late, as the axe starts to fall on he...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

No reviews yet

Click here to add your review