The Cherry Orchard

Russia is changing. The time of the titled rich is coming to an end. On the Ranevsky estate, there is much worry that the money to keep the property going is gone. And the worries are justified. The estate has been put up for auction and it has been purchased by a man with parents who were serfs.

This play has brilliant characterizations of a diverse set of people, all with endearing qualities and deep human failings. The setting, on the estate of a huge old cherry orchard, keeps the play grounded, with frequent referrals to beauty of the sight and smell of the orchard, and the tragic ending in which the estate is sold and the cherry trees cut down.

I enjoyed reading it. Seems like the type of play that is best performed, though, and not read to oneself.

The orchard and the thudding throes of its vast but stifling space creates a landscape-on-stage that combines the sensual world into an emptiness of sorts. One could see, smell and of course hear the sound of a hopelessness which screams with longing to be filled again with something substantial; not the same dead-habits of effluent but numb and cold gestural drift ... but with a slightly more deeper sense, to be sensed by two individuals.

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