by MALCOLM
PAGE
Theatre Critic
The many difficulties of performing
Chekhov's plays start with
casting at least ten actors who can rapidly create
an ensemble
while communicating - in translation - not
only Russia a century
ago but what seems the strangely emotional 'Slav
soul. '
Nevertheless, actors love to perform a Chekhov
play.
Vancouver has seen two major productions of The
Cherry Orchard in
the last thirty years, by West Coast Actors at
the Vancouver
East Cultural Centre, 9 September-8 October
1977, and by the
Playhouse, 18 February-18 March 1995. Robert
Graham directed
the West Coast Actors; Christopher Newton directed
at the
Playhouse. Both productions had superlative casts,
and most of
the names would be familiar to regular Vancouver
theatregoers.
From my own review of the West Coast Actors' production,
I
note: "Bernard Cuffling supplied perhaps the
richest characterization
as a mincing Gayev, a man who knew his own insipidity
and had
come to enjoy it, incapable of even one day's work
in a bank. Jim
McQueen was a smart, polished Lopakhin, a strong
and energetic
challenge to the declining gentry, though finally
too exultantly
cruel in his third act triumph. Terry Waterhouse
as Trofimov said
all the right things in such a feeble voice that
we knew nothing
could come of his sentiments. As Madam Ranevskaya,
Trish
Grainge looked beautiful and spoke beautifully,
oozing with such
charm that I couldn't understand why everyone didn't
rush to
ensure her posterity."
Colin Thomas, in The Georgia Straight, wrote of
the Playhouse
production: "Newton's appreciation of the
character's unmediated
passions is largely what makes this production
so enjoyable.
Responding to the challenge of making extreme feeling
credible,
the actors flourish... When the whole stage
is suddenly still and
Nicola Cavendish shows us how Mme Ranevskaya's
heart breaks,
it's devastating. Cavendish's Ranevskaya is a remarkable
piece of
work, at once childlike, licentious, gracious and
terrorized...
Newton's production is vivacious in its physical
conception as
well. Scenes that could have been static are kept
alive by wide,
sweeping blocking."
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John
Hirsch wrote that "If Chekhov doesn't make
you laugh, it's a bad production. If Chekhov doesn't
make you cry, it's a bad production." The
Cherry Orchard involves at least ten characters
who matter: to follow each of their journeys I
went to see the play ten times.
The
review which appeared in the Province on February
19, 1957 was not kind to either Chekhov or the
production. Mike Tytherleigh wrote: "If anyone
has helped to close up theatres and turn them into
supermarkets it is the Russian playwright Anton
Chekhov. Last night the UBC Players Club alumni
staged "The Cherry Orchard" at the Fredric
Wood theatre and once again confirmed in my own
mind that Chekhov is best left alone. Read him
in bed or at play readings but keep him off the
stage. For his messages and truths are too out
of-date to have any impact today...Frankly I think
the time has come for a moratorium on Chekhov and
the Orchard should
not only be chopped down but be buried for I
fear that some drama students may catch something
from
it and we'll be even further from pulling today's
theatre out of the doldrums."
Martha Robinson's review which appeared in the
Vancouver Sun two days later saw the production
in a much more favorable light. The headline read, "Actors
in UBC Play Perform Like Orchestra". The reviewer
wrote: "The latest and greatest of the Russian
novelist's plays, it has no 'plot' in the traditional
sense of the word. Its effectiveness rests on the
actors' ability to infect an audience with subtle
contrasts of mood...the Frederic Wood Theatre Workshop
cast proved equal to the author's challenge. They
carried the subject to its logical conclusion like
players in an integrated orchestra."
Chekhov is best left
alone. Read him in bed or at play readings but
keep him off the stage
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