The Cherry Orchard at Actors' Shakespeare Project

A Stage in a Strange Place

By Kate Driscoll

It is still unbelievable that the cast of Cherry Orchard created a stage from one room in a manor. The dialogue that the actors had was fast-paced, and timed to perfection. The only pauses were meant there with their pregnant pauses enunciating the mood and creating some form of suspense. The language itself was understandable, it was thought that this play would be similar to Shakespeare’s work, too great not to love, but incredibly hard to understand. The actors definitely helped with understanding of the language from their facial expressions and how they used their body language to assist with their character development.

The set was part of a room at the Dane Estate at Pine Manor College. The seating surrounded the center of their “stage” which was really the center of the room. The actors also used the two staircases that lead to the room as another piece of the stage they had made for themselves. The lighting at the end of the play put some emphasis on the dismal mood of Firs as he was forgotten by the other characters. The lights focused solely on him and the rest of the room was pitch black. All could be heard was the chopping of the cherry trees. This helped focus on Firs, with his own little spotlight, and as he died, the slow sound of the ax. The costumes were good at showing the time period that the Cherry Orchard had taken place in. The long skirts and the elaborate buns proved that. At the end of the production, the fur coats which are rather uncommon nowadays, it cemented the idea that this play was set in the early 20^th century.

The blocking of the early 20^th century set production was seemingly spontaneous in the way they moved, but it is known that directors make sure that blocking is involved to prevent blocking of another person and collisions. The story was told well, but with a couple issues that remained unsolved. One questions is why was Dunyasha played to be such a diva; was it intentional or not because it did not seem to fit with the rest of the characters well? Another was why did Yasha lie about taking Firs to the hospital at the end? The problem is that the author of this play has long since passed on, so the answers will be only theories of Anton Chekov’s possible answers. The casting was excellent on how the actors was so well-versed in acting.

Though there may be many questions left unanswered from watching this performance, it creates profound thought on the subject, and that is great to be left thinking and talking about the production for hours after seeing it. The Cherry Orchard was a well-done play as a whole with few issues that were found.