The Cherry Orchard - review

First impressions of the Anton Chekhov play.

(Note: spoilers ahead)

I must say, after reading some of his short stories ( The Lady with the Dog, Gooseberries, The Chameleon, The Death of a Clerk and my all time favorite Vanka ), I knew I wanted more. Looked up his major works and got my hands on The Cherry Orchard.

It’s been an hour now since I finished reading this play, and now am witnessing a battle between the Chekhov fan girl and this entity that calls itself ignorance.

Fan girl: Again, core Chekhov! Cleverly depicting human emotions of longing, nostalgia, sense of duty, love , greed , betrayal, redemption and laze.

Ignorance: Yeah, but isn’t the storyline too thin? What makes this one of his major works?

Fan girl : The story actually spans across generations, indirectly. The whole idea that the cherry orchard was finally purchased by a son of a former serf, gives the backdrop of how ancient the roots of the characters are. He illustrated with just a simple plot - the locus of each character and how their attachment or lack thereof , towards the cherry orchard, impacts in a profound way the remainder of their lives.

Ignorance: Hmm, wait. What do you mean?

Fan girl: Behold the irony! Lybouv - who has grown up watching the cherry orchard, is immensely attached to it. The entire plot she is either lost in nostalgia or is weeping due to the the looming loss of the orchard. While Lopakhin, has no such emotional attachment towards the orchard, despite the orchard being direct result of labor of his ancestors. Yet, he offers practical solution to save it from being sold. Lybouv hardly pays any heed to Lopakhin’s advice and on the other hand, does not do anything to actually save the orchard. In the end, she loses the orchard while Lopakhin buys it off.

Ignorance: True. But this entire plot could have been handled by two characters alone, why do we need such a huge cast, eh?

Fan girl: Well, how else you experience unconditional daughter’s love via Anya, withering away day by day via Firs, incompetence via Gayev, freedom via Petya, unrequited love via Dunyasha , callousness via Yasha , greed via Pishchik, devotion via Varya and just comedy via Charlotta and Yepikhodov?

Ignorance: Fineee! Anything in particular you liked?

Fan girl: “Anything” you say? Huh..given you are ignorance, let me give some glimpses of gold here. Look at these lines:

The line is from when Petya describes death, never thought like this before -

Perhaps man has a hundred senses and death eliminates only the five that are known to us, but the other ninety-five remain alive.

And the below, Petya’s answer to Lopakhin trying to give him a loan -

Your father was a muzhik, mine had a chemist’s shop, and from that follows precisely nothing.

How he disregards any ancestral bonds and saves his freedom!

And this line where Lyubov recalls her childhood -

I used to look at the orchard from here, happiness woke up with me every morning..

What a line.

Ignorance: You call me ignorance. Did you even read reviews elsewhere , what the play actually is about?

Fan girl: Yes, indeed. There are a lot of layers, which I could not uncover at first. Also no way I could link it to the main theme that affected Russia at the time. But mine was a just clean slate - human-emotions-only take on the play.

Ignorance: Well then, time to change your name to ignorance I guess? Also..am myself a bit of a fan now.

[ Curtain. ]