At the Utah Shakespearean
Festival's Randall Jones Theater, Anton Chekov's "The Cherry
Orchard" is an intense psychological drama that examines wealth,
power, nobility, and slavery from both the slave's and master's point
of view. To landowner Yuba Ranevskaya and her brother Leonid, the
cherry orchard symbolizes peace, beauty, and happiness amid any
storm. To their former serf Lopakhin it's a symbol of the servitude
of 
his
father and grandfather, and part of the reason his father would get
drunk and beat him as a child.
Ranevskaya has been living in
Paris, since the drowning death of her young son. She has squandered
all of her money and the estate is about to be auctioned off to pay
the debt. The set is the interior of the house as she left it five
years earlier. It's dull and drab, as are most of the sets and music
in this show. It wears you down. She has always been good to
Lopakhin, who is now a wealthy businessman. He is at the house to
meet her, and offers her a proposal to save her estate. He will lend
her the money if she will permit him to cut down the cherry orchard,
to make lots for summer tourist homes. Ranevskaya virtually refuses
to recognize the proposal, while her brother snorts "This place
smells of cheap scent" in a reference to Lopakhin.
Dennis Robertson's Leonid is a
poverty stricken noble who insists on shooting his mouth off about
everything, and in the process he offends most anyone who takes him
at all seriously. He launches into a soliloquy about the beautifully
noble 100 year old bookcase, which, incidentally, appears to be made
from cherry wood. He suggests that they borrow money from their
Yaroslavl Aunt who "married beneath her, but she's got enough
money so she doesn't like us." His arrogance and obstinacy
actually provides some lightness to this play because he takes it to
such extremes.
Ranevskaya's daughter, Anya is
in love with a former tutor, of her brother who drowned. Pyotr
Trofimov or Petya is a perpetual student 
who
will be so till the end of time. He rails against the intelligentsia
who don't make anything, do anything constructive, don't even read
books of substance. He says "the problem with your family is
that you owned serfs; you owned human souls. That's what the cherry
orchard represents and that's why it must come down." Only he
and Anya look forward to a new life, free of the old ties that bind.
The action revolves around the
various love affairs, while it becomes almost like a dirge.
Everything is permeated with a feeling of dread, almost like
Dostoyevsky. Lopakhin always reminds them of the auction so he can
get the cherry orchard. Everyone ignores him.
When the day of the auction
comes they hire a band, even though they have no money to pay them.
The tension rises perceptibly as time passes with no word. Ranevskaya
tells Petya "you can't imagine anything really bad because
you're too young to know trouble. I was born here. Without the cherry
orchard life has no meaning for me. If it must be sold, sell me with
it." Lopakhin bursts in: He has bought the estate in a bidding
war for 90,000 rubles, 40,000 above the debt. He now owns the estate
where his father and grandfather were slaves.
The final scene is desolation.
Everybody is going away and the trunks are stacked in the house.
Lopakhin brings champagne, but no one will drink. It has always been
assumed that Lopakhin would marry Ranevskaya's adopted daughter
Varya, but the proposal never comes and they go their separate ways.
Anya and Petya are the only happy ones as they are now free to begin
a new life. The old servant Firs, who longs for the days when masters
were masters and slaves were slaves is the only one left as he lays
down and dies.
This was an outstanding cast
led by Michele Farr's Ranevskaya. She's distracted almost everywhere.
She lives, in her own world with token visits to the rest of us. The
past happiness is her life and it's all symbolized by the cherry
orchard. Rick Hamilton's Lopakhin is outwardly confident. He's
wealthy and secure in that, but there's an inner awareness of his
serfdom that bursts out at times. He can't make sense of good books;
his hand writing is atrocious, and he's obsessed with cutting down
that cherry orchard.
Kristin Bennett cuts a sad
figure as Varya. Her happiness is so close, but she "can't
propose to him" and is doomed to sorrow. Henson Keys' Firs is
indomitable. He was a serf and will always be a serf. Likewise with
Dennis Roberson's Leonid. "He is a man of the '80's." He
was a serf owning nobleman. His serfs were stripped from him; his
nobility, never. Michael A. Harding's Petya yearns for the
advancement of man. He will be in the vanguard of the new awareness,
and would probably have been a leader of The October Revolution of
1917. Mary Dolson's Anya is just sweet, lovable, and happy to be free
of her past. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" was a deeply
moving, thought provoking drama at The
Utah Shakespearean Festival in
Cedar City. It continues into September.
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