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The Cherry Orchard
THEATER REVIEW The Cherry Orchard January 12, 2004 The Chance is commemorating Anton Chekhov's centennial with its production of The Cherry Orchard, one of his masterpieces. The play is also set a hundred years ago, at the turn of the century, in the estate of Russian heiress Liubov Ranyeskaya, regally interpreted by Karen Webster, who is returning from France to her birthplace. Russian serfs were liberated in 1861, creating a social revolution where former servants could become the nouveau rich or remain indebted to their masters. The Russian aristocracy was already in the death throes of the communist revolution which would seal its demise just a few years later in 1917. Paralleling Russian societal changes, the rest of the world was shaking Victorian imperialism and ushering the new era of the 20th century with its modernism and global social revolution of the rising bourgeoisie. Even though Liubov is ruined, she and her entourage cling on to chimerical hopes of finding money to stave off the sale of the estate where her son drowned, and which has belonged to the family for generations. Returning with Liubov are her vivacious and beautiful daughter Anya (Sylvia Keays), Liubov's brother Leonid Gayev (Warren Draper), Anya's governess Carlotta (Ruth Nickerson) and their suave valet Yasha (Dimas Diaz). In the owners' absence, the estate had been run by Liubov's dour adoptive daughter Varya (Wendy Braun), assisted by faithful old servant Firs (Herb Parks) and naive, flirtatious maid Dunyasha (Meredith Young). Yermolai Lopakhin (Patrick Sweetman) is a rags-to-riches young businessman the scion of former serfs. Petya Trofimov (David Schneider) was Liubov's son's tutor and is a lifelong graduate student yearning for social justice and equality. Boris Semynov-Pischchik (James Ross) is a down on his luck neighbor with a penchant for borrowing money from everyone. Semyon Yepikhodov (Brian Weed) is the young accident-prone estate clerk. The play is book-ended by the arrival and departure from the estate of the same characters, with dust cloths covering the antique furniture. From the aging home's windows, the title's orchard offers its gentle vistas with the nearby river. The extended family of relatives, friends, neighbors, servants and staff spend several months there with the estate's fate in the balance - whether it can stay in the family, or be sold for subdivision, as Lopakhin enthusiastically suggests as a solution to the family's financial needs, but one that is unacceptable for Liubov who feels a visceral link to the property. On this tapestry are stitched several love stories, Anya's with the staunch and arrogant Trofimov, Varya's ambivalence toward Lopakhin, and Dunyasha's various romances. Chekhov flawlessly interprets the complexities of the tragicomic Russian soul with all its larger than life theatricalities, keen intellect and deep-rooted weaknesses. Contrasting the birth pangs of communism with its long agony over the past few decades and the current transition vagaries makes for an interesting reinterpretation of the piece. Erika Miller's breathtaking period costuming imbues the play with the subdued elegance of a Monet painting, from austere garb to romantic laces and rich pelts. Jocelyn Brown directed the play and provided the right mood in her classical music selection punctuated by twirling waltzes. All the actors give strong interpretations, including Jeff Hellebrand in three small parts, and Herb Parks shining throughout as the old servant mulling over his responsibilities to the estate and its owners present and past. From Russia with love is the Chance's new year gift of The Cherry Orchard to the theatrical community and should not be missed.
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THEATER ARTICLE Chekhov's Masterpiece Returns
January 19, 2004 There have been far too many productions of Anton Chekhov's masterful final play The Cherry Orchard to possibly keep track of (including an interesting staged reading at The Skirball with Marsha Mason, Charles Durning, Jennifer Tilly, Scott Wolf and Jeffrey Jones), but the always innovative Chance Theater knows there's still plenty of life in the venerable piece. On the centennial anniversary of the seminal Russian playwright's death, this new production is staged by veteran director Jocelyn A. Brown and features a cast that includes Warren Draper, Jeff Hellebrand, Karen Webster and Brian C. Weed. The story involves a formerly wealthy family trying to cling to respectability as their estate dwindles to nothing, and is an artful mix of comedic and dramatic moments.
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THEATER REVIEW 'Cherry Orchard' bears wistful
crop January 20, 2004 Mood pieces - that's how most of Anton Chekhov's stage dramas are described. Low on action, the Russian playwright's works are slices of life that offer an array of characters viewed in a realistic light. As Chekhov's final play, The Cherry Orchard, first staged in 1904, is something of a culmination of such earlier plays as The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters. It's a beautiful, poetic work, and one of the things that makes Chance Theater's staging - timed to coincide with the play's centennial - work so well is the Anaheim Hills troupe's choice of the Paul Schmidt translation. From 1997, Schmidt puts the dialogue of Chekhov's Russian
characters into American vernacular that's more or less contemporary,
making the whole more readily accessible to today's audiences by communicating
the underlying meaning. Director Jocelyn Brown and her cast lend this material the kind of unforced spontaneity vital to works of naturalism. Brown imparts the right underlying degree of gravity and many a playful touch in line with the text's lighter moments. Through poetic language, Cherry Orchard is like the great films of Jean Renoir - screwball comedy with a social conscience - and though the idiom may be American, the story's Russian flavor, and Chekhov's profound sense of nostalgia, are never lost. Karen Webster is a delicate, wistful Liubov, expressing the woman's joy and the heartfelt pain of carrying the past's burdens. Chekhov cleverly splits these two facets among Liubov's two daughters. Wendy Braun is restrained as the sober, humorless Varya, her unrequited love for Lopakhin mirroring her mother's broken affair in Paris. As the younger, unsullied Anya, Sylvia Keays radiates compassion and indestructible optimism. As Liubov's brother, Leonid, determined to save the family's estate, Warren Draper is both blunt and warm. The tall, young Patrick Sweetman isn't especially mercenary as Lopakhin, who pushes for the property sale and sees the family and their estate only in terms of dollar signs - but he projects bristling confidence. David Schneider is solemn and dignified as Petya, the teacher who scorns everything Lopakhin stands for - and, thanks to Schmidt's new version, rails against a litany of social ills relevant to 21st-century America. Brown's supporting cast is superb. Herb Parks is a delightfully crotchety as the old codger Firs and James Ross jovial as clueless neighbor Pishchik. All four servants, the play's comic relief, are distinct: Dimas Diaz is a chuckling, snorting, self-satisfied Yasha and Meredith Young is winsome as Dunyasha, his girlfriend. Pushing for - and getting - even bigger laughs are Brian C. Weed's Semyon, the ne'er-do-well with a mouthful of mangled malapropisms, and Ruth Nickerson's Carlotta, whose clowning includes singing, dancing, card tricks and silly voices. The production is simple and elegant: Joseph Horn's set, Erika C. Miller's costumes, Casey Long's lighting and Brown's sound design evoke a bygone era - but one still pertinent to today.
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THEATER REVIEW The Cherry Orchard January 22, 2004 The definitions of what constitutes a "classic" play may vary some in the details, but all true classics share a few necessary basic ingredients. Enduring relevance across generations is a must, as is the ability to tap into basic, hardwired human constants such as hope, fear and desire. Hair styles may change, hemlines rise and fall, and slang comes and goes, but the core wants of humanity remain universal and unchanged. No one understood the essence of the human condition better than Anton Chekhov, and no play ever defined it with more aching clarity than The Cherry Orchard, which debuted at the Moscow Art Theatre 100 years ago this month. The play has been staged a couple of gazillion times since then -- for more than just one good reason -- and The Chance Theater's current production, under Jocelyn A. Brown's direction, firmly grasps most of those reasons. Liubov Ranyevskaya (Karen Webster), her deluded brother Gayev (Warren Draper), and various moochers and hangers-on survive by completely disconnecting from reality, from Liubov's beloved childhood home with its once-magnificent cherry orchard now withering in foreclosure, to all of Czarist Russia, which will soon topple in bloody revolution. Performing Chekhov requires speaking the lines on the page while simultaneously living the often-contradictory emotions that lie between them. Working from a lean new translation by Paul Schmidt, director Brown infuses her Orchard with enough ineffable longing and unarticulated desire to help smooth out a cast of fluctuating dexterity. Standouts include the amusing frivolity of Ruth Nickerson's Carlotta; James Ross' jovial parasite Pishchik; and Wendy Braun's Varya, whose unbending obligation to position and appearance masks the deep well of vulnerability and desire her fierce pride simply will not allow her to tap into.
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