Perfect Play + Trees
the 2016 Moscow Art Theater production of The Cherry Orchard
“There are 2 kinds of rich people. The ones who do stuff, and the ones who don’t!”
That was my 13 year old’s reaction to the heroine of the The Cherry Orchard doing nothing with an apparent solution to her dilemma. 2024 USA teen was just as baffled as 1904 Russian Lopahkin,
Like Lopakhin, the teenager left the room baffled. I believe he chose instead to read the 8 year old’s graphic novel about a brave kid who does a variety of world saving things, written by one of the original reality tv stars. Hmmm…best play of the 20th century vs. Hilo: the Rise of the Cat….
This play is still on the AP English Lit list of possibles. Many theater-folks think it is one of the best plays ever. Nevertheless, I have never seen it on any of the hundreds of high school literature curriculums I have looked at over the past couple of years. So, very few people are choosing it voluntarily. I went looking for a “how to teach this” guide online and came up empty — when a teacher figures out how to teach a class, they seem to post it somewhere on the internet. The absence of hits is very rare.
….actually the biggest mention of The Cherry Orchard is from this Reese Witherspoon book club recommendation of the novel Tom Lake (a riff on Thornton Wilder’s Our Town). Evidently, some Chekhov plays are mentioned in that novel: “If you can stomach a far more depressing view than that of Our Town, these seminal works may be worth checking out. (Or, in my English teacher opinion, at least worth reading the synopses on Sparknotes or Wikipedia.)“
Calling it depressing and plugging the SparkNotes is a warning, not a recommendation - and appropriate.
What if this is not actually a depressing play? Chekhov didn’t want it to be depressing. My teen left the room because a story about do-nothing rich folks is annoying to him. Not worth the slow pace and minimal visual input. Why should I care about these people? this non-plot? if he can’t answer those questions quickly he moves on…usually to stories about dragons…or cats.
English teachers all know what will work in their classrooms the best. and/or what they can teach the best. A teacher can host a book/play recommendation club - not me. Believe me, I tried. I asked every teacher who had ten minutes after school if, hypothetically, they would have a class read Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand in tandem with that play’s inspiration: Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. The answer was always no. Various reasons, but always no. I have not stopped asking about other contemporary plays written by funny young playwrights. Never a yes. Never a hmmm, perhaps. Always a hard no.
Chekhov is definitely not young, fun is not the word most of us associate with him. I never pitch Chekhov.
The production I watched with the kids was the Moscow Art Theater’s 2016 production (we get Kanopy for free through our library, it’s on there.) Same stage as the original, very different staging from the original.
I loved it. I thought the actors were wonderful. The lead female, Lubov Ranevskaya played by Russian movie star Renata Litvanovna, had my favorite portrayal of that character. You can imagine a young enslaved child falling in love with her. She looks like my 8-year-old version of a princess.
Everyone else was just as funny and appealing and good. It was one of those elegant spare productions with perfect restrained lighting and gorgeous sound.
But! the best part of watching things with very young kids is that they are used to not “getting it”. They don’t mind asking over and over again for the SparkNotes summary of what just happened from the adult to their left. They got a beautiful show, with a real time SparkNotes analysis from their mom. We didn’t pause, because pace is important. It is helpful having it be in Russian, because we can talk over the dialog a little and then read the subtitles.
The 13 year old wants to “get it”, though. I’ll be honest. I want to “get it”. And even in this production that I loved - I didn’t get it.
This is ‘standing on the inside’ humor. You know, when folks don’t really have to exaggerate to create a character. People are generally wacky, weird and extreme if you take us out of our context. The stage can do that. Put us, with all of our quirks, onstage, and quickly we become laughable. Chekhov saw all of these people really well. The lines aren’t jokes. They people are jokes.
We don’t know these folks or this time period. So that whole first act, which should be full of funny introductions, doesn’t land for the 13 year old, or for me.
Theater audiences now are just like theater audiences on the eve of the Russian revolution - mourning the passing of white aristocrat culture.
My 13 year old is not. He is the lucky student of sensitive teachers that teach literature just right for his generation. This is not one of those works.
…mmmmm….actually…..I think it can be!
But for a 13 year old to “get it” you need the trees.
This will always be an ‘eat the rich’ show. Lopakhin will always be the most sympathetic figure - but you would have two seconds of pause if you fully understood that he wants to cut the trees down. The first modern person I thought of who advocated to cut down big banks of trees and rent the parcels of land out to middle class people … is Bolsonaro.
The vast majority of our Brazilian-American neighbors that vote in Brazil’s elections voted for Bolsonaro. Like way more than 75%. Just ask. Folks will tell you why. It has to do with the right to be middle class.
To dig into the earth and extract something of value, like the other ailing aristocrat did with his land in this show, or cut out one small chunk of land for each person, cut down pretty cherry trees and grow potatoes (that is what did happen to all of Russia’s cherry orchards).
This is plug #2 for trees. Onstage or in the audience. In the lighting or in the sound design. Somewhere there must be trees. For my 13 year old to “get it”. But, honestly, for me to get it.