The Cherry Orchard

Sympathy for the rich

Theater bigs have been arguing about how many props to have onstage forever it seems. My preoccupation with the question of how much stuff is much less hoity-toity lit crit metaphorical than Meyerhold’s, much more technical. To put it bluntly:

If we can’t see the characters’ things, how do we know how rich they are?

How much should we care about these rich people? For the wider public that was actually the big debate around The Cherry Orchard. The formerly enslaved tree-chopper vs. the aristocratic tree-hugger.

Despite their differences, Chekhov thought Stanislavsky was the best actor ever. Chekhov wanted him to play Lopakhin, son of the enslaved farmer who wins the estate. Stanislavsky chose Gayev, the impotent, oblivious, aristocrat that loses the estate. He liked that part so much, he played it as his last role.

Stanislavski as Gayev. There is a more often used photo from this same photo session. I like this one, though. Less silly. but still silly.

Though his upbringing was more like …