THE CHERRY ORCHARD To 15 August.
London.
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
by Anton Chekhov new version by Tom Stoppard.
Old Vic Theatre In rep 15 Aug 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm. Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 28 July 7.30pm (+ Touch Tour 6.30pm).
Captioned 14 July.
TICKETS: 0844 871 7628 (£2.50 transaction fee (does not apply to supporters of The Old Vic)
Minicom: 0870 060 6641.
www.oldvictheatre.com
Review: Carole Woddis 9 June, 2009.
Wrong sort of inner emptiness for Chekhov..
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard should make a perfect companion piece to Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. I’m not sure, though, that Sam Mendes’ juxtaposition in this Bridge Project season reveals anything new or startling other than giving the 20-strong cast the chance to stretch their undoubted talents.
Interestingly, the choice of The Winter’s Tale with The Cherry Orchard mirrors Mendes’ swansong coupling at the Donmar six years ago. Like Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya, an air of melancholy hangs over these two productions, conjoined as they are by themes of loss, time passing and renewal through youth. Their settings too are not dissimilar: bare stage, a panoply of candles set in a vaguely Edwardian period.
There is some rationale for this with The Cherry Orchard (written 1903), anticipating as it does the convulsions set to overwhelm Russia in 1905 and culminating in 1917. Mendes also suggests something more contemporary in Simon Russell Beale’s Lopakhin, the self-made businessman about to clean up with his former master’s cherry orchard estate, who you sense will go on to make bigger financial killings. It’s not difficult to see today’s Russian oligarchs in the triumphalist stance of this son of a serf.
Russell Beale’s character is therefore, as with his riveting Leontes in Winter’s Tale, a centrifugal force. But he’s not the most important one. Nor, disappointingly is Sinéad Cusack’s Madame Ranevskaya – a glorious apparition in vivid scarlet. This is certainly a woman who’s loved too well. Instead, it is, jointly, Paul Jesson’s beamingly complacent Gaev and Rebecca Hall’s emotionally pinched, would–be nun, Varya, who become the play’s main ballast.
Tom Stoppard’s new version adds a few jokes. But there’s a strange emptiness at the heart of this production. The odd moment of dramatic tension - the `snap’ of electricity against a background of the sudden appearance of a row of peasants, the danse macabre that opens the second half – are moments only.
Chekhov is about communality, the petty irritations of over-familiarity and rural isolation or it is nothing. Finding it, creating it on stage is an elusive, frustrating business. They’ve not quite caught him here.
Ranevskaya: Sinéad Cusack.
Anya: Morven Christie.
Varya: Rebecca Hall.
Gaev: Paul Jesson.
Lopakhin: Simon Russell Beale.
Trofimov: Ethan Hawke.
Simeonov-Pishchik: Dakin Matthews.
Charlotta Ivanovna: Selina Cadell.
Yepikhodov: Tobias Segal.
Dunyasha: Charlotte Parry.
Firs: Richard Easton.
Yasha: Josh Hamilton.
Passer-by: Gary Powell.
Station Master: Mark Nelson.
Post Office Clerk: Aaron Krohn.
Servants, Guests and Peasants: Michael Braun, Aaron Krohn, Mark Nelson, Jessica Pollert Smith, Gary Powell, Hannah Stokely.
Aluminium harp/percussion/accordion/piano: Harvey Brough,Dan Lipton.
Violin/viola: Stephen Bentley-Klein.
Director: Sam Mendes.
Designer: Anthony Ward.
Lighting: Paul Pyant.
Sound: Paul Arditti.
Music: Mark Bennett.
Music Director: Dan Lipton.
Choreographer: Josh Prince.
Costume: Catherine Zuber.
The Bridge Project is supported by Bank of America and produced by the Old Vic, Brooklyn Academy of Music & Neal Street Productions.
It was also co-commissioned by and produced in association with Athens & Epidaurus Festival, The Edge in Auckland, NZ, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, the Singapore Repertory Theatre and Teatro Espanõl de Madrid.
The Cherry Orchard was first performed at the Old Vic on Friday, May 29, 2009; it opened at BAM in Jan 2009 - March and then embarked on an international tour. It’s last stop after the London season will be Epidaurus.
2009-06-11 23:56:30