Old Play in Manhattan

The Cherry Orchard (translated from the Russian of Anton Chekhov by Irina Skariatina; produced by Carly Wharton and Margaret Webster) is usually considered Chekhov's masterpiece. To some people it may seem, with the passage of time, to have rather more aura than substance, to offer only a picture of impotent wills where Chekhov's The Three Sisters makes a drama of them. But certainly, with its gallery of weak, foolish, charming aristocrats, The Cherry Orchard has a fragrance and touching gaiety to be found in no other Chekhov play

Little happens. Frivolous, warmhearted Madame Ranevsky (Eva LeGallienne) returns, after years abroad, to the old family estate where she lives with her daughter, stepdaughter and fibreless brother (Joseph Schildkraut). They will lose their home, she learns, unless she sells off their beautiful cherry orchard. This she cannot bear to do; to her, the symbolic part means more than the actual whole. So the estate is sold, Madame Ranevsky goes back to a worthless lover in Paris, and her incompetent brother gets a job in a bank.

The famous strokes, at the end, of the ax against the cherry trees--symbolizing the death knell of a class and the vanishing of a certain poetry from life--round out the pathos of these people. But the ax-blade cuts two ways: these spoilt children, who oppose Philistinism, with sentimentality, will not fight for survival, make almost an art of their helplessness. If Chekhov pities them, he gently pillories them also.

Chekhov, who cherished the nuance, abhorred the emphatic. His Cherry Orchard is a mosaic of art rather than a straight transcript of life; its emotional overtones are out of all proportion to its literal story. Last week's production had its merits: a fluent translation, good pace, no mistaken striving after Russian "soulfulness." But the indispensable merit of tone it did not have. It failed to make little scenes radiant or heartbreaking; it played for laughs; it turned minor roles into blatant character parts. Chekhov-lovers had seen a more poignant Cherry Orchard years ago, when Eva LeGallienne staged it and warm, volatile, Slavic Alia Nazimova played the central role.

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