The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov's masterpiece about a family on the edge of ruin-and a country on the brink of revolution.
The story of Lyubov Ranevskaya (Diane Lane) and her family's return to their fabled orchard to forestall its foreclosure, the play captures a people-and a world-in transition, and presents us with a picture of humanity in all its glorious folly.
By turns tragic and funny, The Cherry Orchard still stands as one of the great plays of the modern era. First produced in Moscow in 1904, Roundabout's new adaptation promises to breathe fresh life into this towering tale.
Karam's is not a completely invalid interpretation, even if it doesn't quite hang together (Chekhov, of course, was writing about the decline of the Russian aristocracy at the expense of the rising lower classes). Far more problematic is that Godwin doesn't seem to know if he wants this production to feel classical or modern, bleakly comic or just plain bleak, and so we get a jarring mishmash of styles and approaches.
I'm all for director's theater when it comes to classics; the only question is whether a new frame or filter works on its own terms. And with this thoughtful but often schematic and disjointed Cherry Orchard, the answer is: only in spurts.
1923 | Broadway |
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1923 | Broadway |
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1924 | Broadway |
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1928 | Broadway |
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1928 | Broadway |
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1933 | Broadway |
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1955 | Off-Broadway |
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1962 | Off-Broadway |
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1968 | Broadway |
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1970 | Broadway |
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1972 | Off-Broadway |
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1976 | Off-Broadway |
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1977 | Broadway |
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1982 | Off-Broadway |
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1997 | Broadway |
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2005 | Off-Broadway |
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2011 | Off-Broadway |
Classic Stage Company Production Off-Broadway |
2016 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway Revival Broadway |
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