Saturday, March 8, 2014

The Cherry Orchard at Actors' Shakespeare Project

A New Look at an Old Piece

By Shae McDonald
March 7, 14

  
          A delightfully hilarious play adapted from the infamous Anton Chekhov, has you laughing and crying at the same time. The clever Actor’s Shakespeare Club has taken an interesting twist on a classic love triangle story. The Cherry Orchard is a hysterical play that the company has created to fit a modern audience. The set was by far the greatest part of this piece. The audience was set in a room that looked like an old estate, and the characters played from all different sides of the room. The set could change though, at one point they created an outdoors scene and the transitions were beautiful and flawless. All of the characters seemed to match the scene with their acting, costumes, and general presence in the room even when they weren’t speaking. The only character that seemed to be a bit out of her element was the actress who played Danyasha. Some of the words she said, seemed modern such as, “Oh my God”. This made it seem less believable, and it was unclear if that was a script writing issue or a certain take on the character. Regardless, the piece as a whole was very well done, many times, everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for what was to come next.
            During the play the use of silence was used very effectively. I thoroughly enjoyed the uses of silence, such as the scene where Lopakin is trying to propose to Varya. You know what is going on the whole time because of the facial expressions they used. It was very well done and clearly expressed what they were going through, you could really relate to a lot of the character’s feelings.

              Overall this play was a joy to experience and laugh along to.  

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