Customer Reviews

The Cherry Orchard

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

"How should one live?" is the fundamental question driving most of Chekhov's work, and it is very overtly laid bare in The Cherry Orchard. Should the aristocratic family in decline stick to owning their cherry orchard (representative of the grandiose trappings of Russian aristocracy), or give in to modern commercialization in order to survive? What is the value of tradition, and how many trees should one own? Chekhov will not answer these questions for you, but he poses them in most interesting ways. In addition to wise insights into such fundamental dilemmas, Chekhov also provides a lot of witty banter, and a great slice-of-life view at 19th century Russian high culture. But this is not just a Russian play or a 19th century play; its themes, questions, and prospective answers are relevant for individuals coping with society and history in any place, and at any time.

The Cherry Orchard was me first experience with Chekhov, and I was surprised at the depth in this 49 page play. By no means would I considered myself a "literary expert," but this was very readable and you can pull a lot of the deeper meanings and its context in Russian history by yourself. I was confused at a couple people who write that the simply couldn't understand it and it put them to sleep! It's not THAT tough! If I could understand and appreciate it, almost anyone can!

What I like most about Chekhov is that he doesn't simplify his characters. He's a realist in this sense. Lopahkin and Trophimof each have admirable and detestable characteristics, just like you and I. While it may be set in the tumultuous period prior to the Russian revolution, the ideas and the discussions this play provokes are timeless.

Highly recommended!

As I read this play, my family is in the process of moving a thousand miles away from the farm where I grew up. Though I am so far away from the Russian culture and time of this play, the themes of place, tradition, and inevitable change resonated inside of me, and I am grateful to Chekhov for the way he has handled them.

The Cherry Orchard is a play about change, and the symbolism is pretty easy to recognize. What makes it stand apart, I think, from a thousand other plays on the same theme is its wonderful sense of comedy, of smiling sadness. Chekhov all his life insisted it was a comedy. As the Cherry Orchard slips away from the Ranevskys, they seem to smile at its going. As they are unable to change their habits -- still lending money they don't have, still spending extravagantly -- they quietly laugh at their own foolishness. The change comes, and they leave, heartbroken -- but embracing the change at the same time, only feebling struggling against it. One feels saddest, in the end, for Lopakhin, the new owner of the Cherry Orchard. He seems to believe he has bought happiness and friends, but is quickly discovering the emptiness of money and possessions, as no one wants to borrow from him, and no one seems to pay him much heed at all.

Chekhov paints with a fine brush, and I appreciate that. There is no thunderstorming, no ranting and raving in this work. There is a fine and subtle, sad and comedic portrayal of a family and a place encountering change. It is a heartbreak with a smile.

The translation, though the only one I've read, seems good. It is easy to follow and rich in simple feeling.

if you'd like to discuss this play with me, or recommend something i might enjoy, or just chat, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com.

As much as I enjoy Chekhov, I'm not a big fan of THE CHERRY ORCHARD; it never made much sense to me. However, this adaptation by David Mamet makes the play easier to follow and understand. The play itself is often labeled as a tragedy, but really isn't. As Mamet points out in the introduction to this adaptation, the closest form of drama THE CHERRY ORCHARD's structure resembles is the farce. In fact, if all the characters weren't so depressing, the play would be hilarious. Perhaps that is what Chekhov originally intended, that as we would see the outrageous, pitiful existence of the characters in this play we would laugh at their mopping and folly and strive to make our lives more meaningful. This isn't the best work to introduce one to the genius of Chekhov, but it is a classic and if one can get past all the whining (or to use a more pc term "reminiscing") it's worth the read.

Anton chekhov's "the cherry orchard" is a captivating, but somewhat confusing tale of an aristocratic household that comes face to face with adversity. His impressionistic portrayal of characters delivers a power packed package of meaning that both appeals to and appalls every human heart. Through a subtle messages and powerful passages chekhov purveys his sentiments about a world that is tainted by a dark cloud of selfishness. Although the play itself is tragic-like the characters are not tragic. They seem to blindly stumble upon the pages of life accomplishing absolutely nothing. Through checkhov's genius they still remain human, with dreams and fears like the rest of us. It is through these characters that chekhov's beliefs are made known.

People in my line of work (that is, teachers and critics of literature) seem to be paying more attention to "The Sea Gull" these days, but my money is still on "The Cherry Orchard" as favorite Chekhov play. Dover's incomparably priced edition lacks a little in the readability of the translation, but it's still a nice version of a powerful piece of work.

For me, the real strength of "The Cherry Orchard" is its unwillingness to come down propagandistically on one side of any issue. The intellectual and eternal student Trophimof levels a critique against capitalism, but one must bear in mind that it is capitalism that engineers the upward rise of the erstwhile peasant (and now landowner) Lopakhin (and, in the context of this play's being labeled a "comedy," I think Chekhov codes this rise as a conditionally good thing). Trophimof in fact seems to be granted a great deal of authority by the play, as he complains about the lazy intelligentsia and the useless aristocracy, but, sure enough, not wanting to make things too simple or simplistic, Chekhov has Madame Ranevsky put him in his place. If this is a commentary on turn-of-the-century Russian society and politics (and I think we must read it as such), it is a very balanced, multi-perspectival and complex one.

Even the criticism of the play's upper classes--the focus on Gayef's irrational obsession with billiards or Pishtchik's naive assumption that, when he is in the deepest of financial troubles, something will always come along to bail him out--is delicately balanced against the workaholic insensitivity of Lopakhin, who leaves Varya Ranevsky stranded at the play's end and expecting a proposal of marriage from him that is hinted at but never comes. What Chekhov seems to be supporting is not, perhaps, Trophimof's over-intellectualized and propaganda-like insistence on work, or Lopakhin's materialistic actual obsession with work, but maybe a revaluation of the priorities that have led to social divisions and the problematic reactions to them.

One crucial translation hitch appears early on, as Gayef passionately addresses a cupboard and praises it for holding, for so many years, wisdom and knowledge and the keys to social betterment. All other translations I have consulted have rendered this "cupboard" as a "bookshelf," and, to be honest, that makes a lot more sense, in context. Other issues of readability (or the slight lack thereof) in this Dover edition are best seen in comparison to Hingley's imminently readable and enjoyable Oxford UP translation and edition, which, to my mind, remains the standard. This Dover edition's dialogue is occasionally stilted and impenetrable.

Still, though, for the price, this copy of "The Cherry Orchard" is unbeatable. It's an impressive and provocative play, and even more so when one is reminded of its original context. It's problematic, of course, to pin events to each other and argue for direct influence, but I have a hard time seeing the workers' uprisings in Russia during the winter of 1905-06 as completely unrelated from this play's release in 1904, which set many of these still vital issues into motion in a very productive way.

Too often, 'The Cherry Orchard' moves dangerously close to that dread thing, the Shavian 'comedy' of ideas. full of facile symbolism, a schematic narrative arc and obvious allegorical characterisation, the play seems to groan under the weight of characters pontificating on grave matters such as social and historical change, the 'idea' of Russia and the rhetoric of freedom and progress.

What saves 'Orchard' is the merciful fact that it was written by Chekhov and not Shaw. Whatever his overall conception of the play's weighty themes - the decline of the aristocracy; the new economic power of former serfs etc. - Chekhov is simply incapable of writing mere mouthpieces, and every character, no matter how monstrous, limited, avaricious, delusive or paralysed (in action or mind), is suffused with the kind of life (flawed, egocentric, perhaps, but human) for which he had a unique, sympathetic, though always honestly satirical eye. it is a tough task to make an audience empathise with a group of silly former slave-owners, but death, loss, change, poverty, personal failure and disappointment are things we have all felt, and we would probably be lying if we couldn't find something of ourselves in most of the characters (I, worryingly, found myself most drawn to the snobbish, immature, enndearingly gauche Gaev).

There are too many emotionally loaded, privileged and enigmatic moments for characters to be simply straw targets, and the play is shot through with poignant autobiographical resonances (it was Chekhov's last, written when he was terminally ill). In fact, the one character I found thoroughly dislikable is the one who seems to make the most humanitarian sense, the revolutionary student Trophimof; but his tedious, inhuman sermons about work and the future sound too much like the Bolsheviks whose barbaric utopia would be established less than two decades later.

Unlike Wilde, say, or Shakespeare, Chekhov rarely reads very well on the page. His deliberately plain speech can seem flat, and the importance of silence, waiting, time passing with an almost painful tangibility is impossible to convey, never mind the rhythms that become so evident in performance, or the use of sound effects and music (American translations seem to me the best, fluid and not fusty; I read Carol Rocamora's this time). This is why actors treasure him - his plays are almost like sketches, giving them unprecedented freedom to create characters from hints and ambiguities.

Another difference between Shaw and Chekhov is that the former's plays are theses or theorems, designed to prove points the author is unswervingly convinced of before he's even written a word. Chekhov is rarely sure about anything, and his plays are liberatingly, if perilously, open-ended. Despite the rigid structures he fences them in, his characters always feel as if they have lived before the play and will continue to, no matter how badly, long after it.

It should also be remembered that Chekhov called 'Orchard' a comedy: it is full of characters and scenes tottering from tragedy to farce. Charlotta, the tragicomic governess, full of amazing magic tricks and ventriloquism, yet fundamentally isolated and facing a desperately uncertain future, is perhaps emblematic.

I bought the Kindle edition of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard under the impression that it was the translation done by English playwright Tom Stoppard as the authorship of the item clearly states in Amazon's description. However, upon examining the title page of the Kindle book I was shocked to see someone else listed as the translator. I have not read this translation and therefore cannot review it, but I am extremely disappointed that Amazon is misrepresenting this item and they need to dix it!

I don't think even a seasoned theatre goer could sit through this play if it were directed a drama. I imagine all the brooding speeches, unmotivated pauses, and the inevitable "gloom" of chopping down the cherry trees. The comedy is indeed dark, but sheer silliness abounds with the brother and his imaginary pool shooting, the governess and her magic, and foolishness of Madame Ranevsky. Only two moments are purely dramatic and poignant: the reaction of Ranevsky when Lopakhin purchases the estate, and the death of Firs.

To me, the play was good as it was. Checkov insisted that this play was a comedy. However I do not see comedy in a woman who has a problem with holding on to her money and is about to lose a very beautiful piece of land in Russia. I will not judge this aspect of the play. If I were running this play for production, I would work it as a drama. Checkov sees it as a comedy because maybe it (the play) is his own way of getting back at the aristocracy of nineteenth century Russia. John Tompkins Victoria Texas