Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya is under pressure to sell off her beloved cherry orchard in order to fund the maintenance of her family, her country estate and her bohemian life style. Her refusal to face her financial predicament and accept the sale leads to the downfall of her family and gives the newly rich property developer Lopakhin, the son of former serfs, the opportunity to realise his plans for these changing times. Chekhov's seminal play premiered in 1904, a time in which Russia was undergoing huge social change. More than a century on, Chekhov's masterpiece seems to be as powerful as ever. In Lev Dodin's transparent staging, the young stellar cast of his Maly Drama Theatre shows us a Russia in which the old values and structures are being dismantled at a frightening pace. programme
dates
Fri June 19 2015 7:30 PM
Sat June 20 2015 7:30 PM
Sun June 21 2015 3:00 PM
information
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Duration of performance unknown (met een pauze)
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote The Cherry Orchard in 1903-1904, a time when Russia was undergoing huge social change. Forty years earlier, serfdom had been abolished under Alexander II, a measure which around the turn of the century still had a great impact on the economic profitability of the aristocracy's landed estates. At the same time, a new middle class was on the rise and the proletariat were stirring, preparing to claim their role in history. In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov recounts the tale of an old family of the landed gentry who fail to move with the changing times. After five decadent years in Paris, Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya, the matriarch of the Ranevsky family returns to her estate in Russia. The family, which also includes her daughter Anya, her stepdaughter Varya and her brother Leonid Gayev, need to deal with their mounting debts if they want to keep the estate. The local businessman Lopakhin, the son of former serfs on the estate who has become a successful and rich entrepreneur, proposes to sell off the cherry orchard for redevelopment as a site for holiday.
In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov recounts the tale of an old family of the landed gentry who fail to move with the changing times. After five decadent years in Paris, Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya, the matriarch of the Ranevsky family returns to her estate in Russia. The family, which also includes her daughter Anya, her stepdaughter Varya and her brother Leonid Gayev, need to deal with their mounting debts if they want to keep the estate. The local businessman Lopakhin, the son of former serfs on the estate. who has become a successful and rich entrepreneur, proposes to sell off the cherry orchard for redevelopment as a site for holiday homes. The receipts from the sale would be enough to retain the rest of the estate, but to Ranevskaya this is taking things a step too far. The cherry orchard is nationally known for its size and has great sentimental value to her and her family. Unable to take her responsibility and face her financial predicament, she refuses to sell the orchard. Whilst the family are having a party inside, the estate, including the cherry orchard, is auctioned and sold to Lopakhin. When the family members leave the house one by one, the audience can hear the axes as they cut down the trees offstage, symbolising the end of an era and the rise of another one.
While writing The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov complained frequently that he seemed to have lost control over his work as if it was writing itself. When the play finally premiered in 1904 in Moscow under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski, he was upset that what he had written as a comedy was presented as a drama. However, Stanislavski proved not to be the only director who found an inexhaustible dramatic depth in this 'comedy'. Constantly balancing between the comic and the tragic, The Cherry Orchard has inspired generations of directors as one of these rare works that effortlessly seem to stand the test of time.
In this new production by the director Lev Dodin (he also presented The Cherry Orchard with the Maly Drama Theatre at the Holland Festival in 1995) Chekhov's masterpiece proves as powerful as ever. More than a century after its world premiere, the characters, performed by a stellar Russian cast led by Xenia Rapoport as Lyubov Ranevskaya and Danila Kozlovsky as Lopakhin, still speak to us, across the boundaries of history.
In his clear staging, Dodin uses sheets, suitcases and ladders to create the impression of a theatre which is, like the estate, about to be abandoned. He shows us a Russia in which the old values and structures are being dismantled at a frightening pace and which seems to have cut itself off from European culture. A Russia which, in Dodin's words, 'we have to confront with the most elementary of spiritual values'.