Madame Ranevskaya is returning home to Russia, to her estate. After many years of living abroad, of marriages, passionately inappropriate and all consuming love affairs. Her daughter Anya rescues her from another desperately humiliating situation. What has happened, is never fully explained. She has no money left, and returning home the only option left. Her debts grown so embarrassingly high the family estate is up for auction to pay them off.
There is a sense in Chekov of people living unreal lives. Holding on to some idea or belief, because its the only scrap of hope they have left. Not wanting to see what is actually impending. Madame Ranevskaya, has a sentimental hold on the family home, symbolised for her by the Cherry Orchard. She carries on spending and giving largesse, with money she does not really have. Despite Lopakhin's repeated entreaties to carry out his plan to save the estate, she holds on to the idea everything will somehow miraculously turn out right. Even though it very clearly will not.
When The Cherry Orchard was first performed in 1904. Russian society was at a turning point. Not seeing the early warning signs, of the revolution that was just over a decade away. The aristocracy and its feudalism were waning, a new wealthier middle class was arising, romantic idealists, such as Tolstoy, were already talking about what a better society might be like.
This production of The Cherry Orchard from 2011, is based on a new translation by Andrew Upton. English productions have normally over emphasised Chekov's nostalgia and fatalism. But here, rather than the usual heavy weight of doom hanging over them all, their is fun, humour and satire whilst all around them smoulders. The hedonism of the wilfully blind. There are quite a few anachronistic modern turns of phrase in the script. The staging over does showing you a very dilapidated estate. You never see the idyllic orchard they all talk of so rapturously and want to preserve. This was no doubt meant to underline the essential unreality of their world view. But this is not even a faded grandeur, its all ready gone to rack n ruin. This makes any love expressed for the place not grounded in either the characters, nor your experience of it.
Zoe Wanamaker as Ranveskaya, is superb. Elegant, yet emotionally a delicate wreck, she maintains this upright manner of warm hearted confidence and defiance. Flipping from frivolity to despair and back in the space of a sentence. Yepikodov, ( Pip Carter ) is played with great poignancy and feeling. A person who never quite gets anything right, yet persists with his unrequited loving pursuit of Dunyasha. Trofimov ( Mark Bonner ) conveys his ardent left wing idealism, that captures Anya's love and devotion. Lopakhin ( Conleth Hill ) emphasises all the time his humble peasant origins. He wants Madame Ranveskaya's love and respect, if not that, then revenge will do.The bragging self made entrepreneur who believes ripping out the orchard and building holiday homes for the nouveau riche is the way forward for Russian society. The ensemble acting throughout is energetic and extremely well choreographed.
This production from 2011, brought a welcome lightness of touch to Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. In the process, it tended to lose its grip on the plays heart and soul, its melancholy sense of loss. The fate of the family here, is analogous to the fate of Russia. Both are caught in circumstances out of their control. Living in a past, that if not already ceased to exist, is rapidly vanishing. Its the beginning of a world changing so rapidly as to be beyond human capacity to adapt to it. A world which we all still live in and likewise fail to fully comprehend what revolutions small changes can bring about.
CARROT REVIEW - 6/8
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