The Cherry Orchard

Press, 26 September 1984, Page 18

The Cherry Orchard

Anton Chekov’s popular play, "The Cherry Orchard,” opens at the Court Theatre on Saturday evening. “The Cherry Orchard” is called a comedv in four acts by its author but, until recently, the play has been presented as a gloomy piece of Russian melancholy. In recent times, directors have paid much more attention to the author’s instructions and what has emerged is a play full of sly humour and the ridiculousness of the situations that the characters work themselves into.

The charming aristocratic family at the centre of the play has let changing times overtake them. They are easy-going and unbusinesslike, so they find themselves in such financial difficulty that it has become necessary to sell the ancestral

estate which includes the historic and beautiful cherry orchard. Although a solution to all their problems is offered them by a low-born business man, they think this answer is too sordid.

As a consequence, the estate is sold over their heads and the play ends with them starting out on a new life. What is notable about the play is how Chekhov manages to portray the lives of 14 characters, their follies and their heartbreaks. He also shows the social changes taking place, and the process by which any establishment is overtaken by a new energetic rising class of business men or political revolutionaries. Judie Douglass plays the enchanting but vague Madame Ranyevskaya and new-comer to the Court, Tony Mack, plays her

equally dithering brother. The peasant business man who offers them financial salvation is Richard Poore. The nun-like Varya and the ardent Anya, the two daughters of the family, are played by Alison Quigan and Kate Goldsbrough. As the 97-year-old family retainer Firs, there is Geoffrey Wearing. Lewis Rowe plays the eccentric landowner Pishchik, Marie Trezona dons large boots to play the clumsy clerk and Alex Gilchrist plays the arrogant valet, Yasha. Eilish Moran powders her nose pretentiously as the maid Dunyasha. Janet Fisher returns to Christchurch as the odd German governess, Charlotta, and the seedy, revolutionary student is Alistair Browning. The season will run until October 27.