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The Cherry Orchard (van Itallie Adaptation)
The Cherry Orchard (van Itallie Adaptation)
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Author: Anton Chekhov Adapted by: Jean-Claude van Itallie Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Format: Softcover # of Pages: 61 Pub. Date: 1995 Edition: Revised ISBN-10: 0822214504 ISBN-13: 9780822214502 Cast Size: 5 women, 9 men, extras
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About
the Play:
The
Cherry Orchard is a full-length drama by Anton Chekhov, in
a revised English version by Jean-Claude van Itallie. A
Russian aristocrat returns from Paris to her childhood estate, which
is due to be sold. Anton Chekhov's 1903 play highlights the growing
irrelevancy of the Russian upper classes as the former peasant class
begins to gain power.
The
Cherry Orchard is takes place at the country estate of Madame
Ranevskaya, an estate famed for its beautiful cherry orchard – and
soon to be sold at auction unless the delinquent taxes are paid. As
the play begins Madame Ranevskaya has returned from Paris, where she
has frittered away the last of her fortune on a cynical young lover,
and it is soon apparent that neither she, nor her family and friends,
can come to grips with the crushing reality which they must face, or
truly fathom the loss which threatens them. Instead they continue to
go on as if nothing had changed, and only the rich merchant Lopakhin,
the nouveau riche son of a peasant, seems to realize the gravity of
the situation. Ironically it is he who bids successfully for the
estate and who sets his men to felling the trees as, in the
bittersweet finale, Madame Ranevskaya departs again for Paris and the
fragile promise of a new and perhaps better life.
The
Cherry Orchard premiered in 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre on
Chekhov's 44th birthday and only six months before his death. Despite
his modern reputation for melodrama, Chekhov insisted at the time
that the play should be treated as 'a light comedy'.Jean-Claude
van Itallie's version of The Cherry Orchard was first
produced in 1977 on Broadway at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont
Theatre and earned tremendous critical and popular acclaim.
Cast:
5 women, 9 men, extras
What
people say:
"To
stage a classic is an easy thing but to restore that classic to the
hands, mind and blood of its creator is in itself an act of
creativity... I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like this
production on a stage before—I left the Beaumont exhilarated."
— New York Times
"…a
new, faithful, very playable and gorgeous translation by Jean-Claude
van Itallie." — New York Post
"Jean-Claude
van Itallie's adaptation is splendid, colloquial without being cute,
simple, moving, funny." — Village Voice
About
the Playwright:
Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian physician, dramaturge
and author of hundreds of short stories and several plays. He is
regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the
father of modern drama. His plays, including
The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard,
are performed in theatres throughout the world and he is second only
to Shakespeare in the number of productions his plays receive.
Jean-Claude van Itallie is one of the most distinguished
playwrights of the American avant-garde. Born in Brussels, Belgium,
he was three when his family fled the Holocaust to America as
refugees in 1940. He grew up on suburban Long Island, graduated
Harvard in 1958, and in the 1960s was a seminal force in the
explosive New York Off-Broadway theatre. He may be best-known for
America Hurrah (his acclaimed anti-Viet Nam war trilogy
comprised of Interview, TV and Motel), The
Serpent, Tibetan Book of the Dead, and his translations of
Chekhov's major plays, which are prized by directors and actors for
their clarity and subtle rhythms, are possibly the most performed
Chekhov versions on the American stage. |
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