The Cherry Orchard

The Cherry Orchard

Director - Janet Suzman
Designer - Simon Wells 
Lighting Designer - Sam Thomas
Music & Sound Designer - Tim Sutton
Voice & Accent - Morwenna Rowe
Production Manager - Andy Shewan 
Stage Manager - Caitlin Hargreaves
Deputy Stage Manager- Annette Evans
Choreographer - Mandy Gordon
Researcher - Georgina Rich 
Klezmer Music Played By - Stephan Aulhorn & Rob Shipster
Magic Consultance - Oliver B & Tim Sutton
MA Acting Classical Course Leader - Ben Naylor 

Creative & Production Teams

Costume Supervisor - Hannah McMahon-Major
Assistant Costume Supervisor - Yiran Duan
Assistant Designer - Conor Smart
Sound Assistant - Rose Farbrother 
Scenic Artists - Philip Douglas, Ellen Forbes & Zowie Wise
Scenic Construction - Louis Carver & George Squires
Dresser - Sophie Raja 
Fit-Up Crew - Oliver Chapman, Lee Silcock, Alan Smith & George Squires 

Performed by MA Acting Classical.

Overview

“The whole world is our orchard!”

[Act II]

In 2002 Argentina went bankrupt. The western – agricultural – areas of the country were especially badly hit. Cherry orchards abound on the foothills of the Andes around Mendoza where the Malbec vineyards grow. That is where our cherry orchard is set, owned and loved by one of the old established family estates of the region, but now barren and no longer bearing fruit.

Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard in this instance is about money - a constant source of worry throughout the play. This family, further impoverished by its airy disregard for prudence, cannot recover from the fiscal turbulence, although by 2007, where our play begins, Argentina had begun its slow recovery. Entrepreneurs and developers are making their presence felt wherever money is to be made.

In the year 1997 I rewrote this extraordinary play and translocated it to a far corner of the old Orange Free State in South Africa, where a newly liberated black man finally found he was able to buy back his ancestral tribal lands from a white family who had lived there for generations. Cherry orchards still abound on the foothills of the Lesotho Mountains, and Chekhov’s play seemed happy to be there. I hope the Andes will be as accommodating.

Just one more thing – in the original, the presence of Varya in the household is never discussed, and only Michael Frayne’s translation offers a plausible explanation for her presence as a second daughter. Chekhov’s genius is to plant, with the utmost economy, a raffish ghost: he says that the dead husband ‘died of champagne’. How better to present Varya, then, as his love-child, adopted into the household by a generous-hearted and forgiving Lyuba Ranevskaya?

Janet Suzman

First performed at the Young Vic Theatre, London on 10 October 2014.
 

Showtimes

Wednesday 24 - Saturday 27 July, 7:30pm

Thursday 25 & Saturday 27 July, 2:30pm

Location: Embassy Theatre, Central.

Other information

NB: Tickets are non-refundable. Please check in with the box office 15 minutes prior to the start of the show where you will receive an entrance token.

Proof of eligibility is required for all concessionary rate tickets.

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is fully wheelchair accessible, please speak with our box office team on 02077228183 if you have any further enquiries.