The Cherry Orchard

The Cherry Orchard is one of the best-known plays of the 20th century. Anton Chekhov wrote it at the end of his life, while dying of tuberculosis, and it premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre in January 1904. Chekhov intended it as a comedy, but Konstantin Stanislavski, the director he chose, staged it as a tragedy. Chekhov hated it, and the argument over how the play should be done has run ever since.

That argument occupies most of my thoughts as I watch the latest adaptation, starring Kristin Scott Thomas (Slow Horses), directed by Ian Rickson and adapted by Conor McPherson. A star-studded cast and an Olivier Award-winning creative team promise something special, and it’s safe to say I am not disappointed.

Ranevskaya (Kristin Scott Thomas) returns from Paris to her family estate, which is in debt and due to be auctioned. Lopakhin, a self-made merchant whose father was a serf on the estate, tells the family how to save it: cut down the orchard and lease the land for summer cottages. What follows is the story of the family and their servants as they grapple with money, the future of the estate and the social changes unfolding in front of them.

The opening is strong. We first meet the servants and lower classes, including Lopakhin (Stephen Mangan), Dunyasha (Megan Cusack), Firs (Karl Johnson) and Varya (Vinette Robinson), Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter and servant. They pull you in immediately, offering a glimpse of the people who keep the house running. The comedy arrives early too, with the squeaking shoes of Yepikhodov (Shubham Saraf) and Lopakhin established as slightly incompetent.

But the play really shines once Scott Thomas takes the stage. Her Ranevskaya is a woman clearly out of touch with reality, yet the performance is subtle enough that we still feel sorry for her. She is brilliant in the most moving scenes: her reunion with Petya and the moment she finds her childhood writing desk. In both, she portrays a woman visibly stuck in the past.

Gaev (Peter Wight), Ranevskaya’s brother, is another standout. He is funny, particularly in his dynamic with Yasha, but also heartbreaking in his moments of distress, especially after the orchard is sold.

The production’s great strength is Rickson’s careful balancing of tragedy and comedy. The party scene is particularly clever, setting the guests’ obvious joy against Ranevskaya’s mounting anxiety over the auction. Here, more than anywhere, every character seems touched by a sense of uselessness. There is genuine sadness, too, in Lopakhin’s breakdown after buying the estate and in the final moments with Firs.

Rickson and McPherson don’t stray far from what you would expect of The Cherry Orchard, and that is to their credit. They stay close to its themes of grief, loss of status and decline. As McPherson points out in an interview in the programme, the wonderful thing about the play is that it reflects the issues of the time in which it is staged, and that is this production’s greatest strength.

The staging is simple: a single room, with a door at the back leading to the rest of the house. Bruno Poet’s lighting deserves real applause, evoking different moods, times of day and the passage of time. Sussie Juhlin Wallen’s costumes mix the traditional and the modern, with Scott Thomas’s outfits the most eye-catching.

So, comedy or tragedy? Rickson’s answer seems to be that Chekhov and Stanislavski were both right. This Cherry Orchard lets you laugh at a family who refuse to see what is coming, then makes you feel the full weight of it when it arrives. With Scott Thomas at its centre, perfectly balancing Ranevskaya’s charm and denial, this is a faithful, beautifully judged production that reminds you why the play has lasted. More than a century after Chekhov and Stanislavski fell out over it, the argument is still worth having, and this is a very good place to have it.