No matter how many performances there are “ Cherry Orchard” in Moscow - there is a viewer for everyone. The Gorky Moscow Art Theater restored the performance based on the immortal play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, the premiere of which appeared on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater back in 1904: Olga Knipper played Ranevskaya, and Stanislavsky himself played her brother Gaev.
In 1988, Sergei Danchenko staged at the Moscow Art Theater. Gorky’s “The Cherry Orchard,” which was successfully performed on stage for almost thirty years, and now the play with an updated cast has met its audience again.
The star cast of the theatre, directed by the renowned Tatiana Doronina, is presented in full color in the updated performance. But, in addition to the great and famous, young actors from the legendary theater were included in the production. Ranevskaya’s daughter, seventeen-year-old Anya, is played by Elena Korobeynikova, and with her youth and enthusiasm the actress seems to brighten up the life of the inhabitants of the old house, which will soon be sold for debts. But youth is the future, and the young actress is eager to make her dreams of the future come true. And thanks to the sensual performance of Elena Korobeynikova, the viewer practically sees this future, it seems close and inexpressibly beautiful. 
The production takes place in an old estate, where Ranevskaya returns from Paris with her daughter Anya. The scenery of the performance (the interior of the house is furnished with great love) emphasizes the place and time in which visitors find themselves. Entering the house, they seem to fall into oblivion, succumbing to the charms of this place, which will forever remain in their hearts. Thanks to the heartfelt performances of the actors, the viewer is ready to believe that the estate was once the most comfortable place on earth for the characters.
The interior of the estate is divided into a room, the windows of which overlook the garden, and a bright corridor - here they dance at balls, which turn out to be Pyrrhic for the mistress of the estate, Ranevskaya. All the characters in the play move in these two spaces, as if in two worlds. They are either immersed in dreams of the future, or in nostalgia about the past, which they want to return.
The main character, who is also the main victim of circumstances, Ranevskaya, performed by the brilliant Honored Artist of Russia Lidia Matasova, appears before the viewer as a “blind” embodiment of what is happening around the garden and house. Ranevskaya lives in memories and does not notice the obvious at all. But she is at home (for now) and therefore is in no hurry, and hopes for the best, which, alas, will never come. 
Tatyana Shalkowskaya, who played Varya, most likely understands the true state of affairs better than others, and therefore is sad, quiet and all in black. But she is unable to help those gathered with anything other than sympathy, and even secretly regrets her bitter fate.
The house and garden also embodies his character on stage - he breathes his own life, from the very recent times of serfdom. After all, it was then that they wanted to marry old man Firs (the convincing Gennady Kochkozharov), and life was in full swing and the cherries were “dried, soaked, pickled, made jam...”. But the time of serfdom has passed, and to find new way Those gathered cannot “make money.” All that remains from that time is the habit of wasting money, and Lyubov Andreevna knows this better than anyone else. And although she admits this weakness, she at the same time cannot resist it. Like, probably, each of us, she has enough of these weaknesses, but maybe that is why she forgives the shortcomings of others and pities everyone.
And although the production is deeply lyrical in its essence, the performance deeply reflects the characters’ characters who remain themselves in the given circumstances. Even the thick-skinned Lopakhin, played by Valentin Klementyev, will stop within the walls of the estate, subject to memories of his own difficult childhood. And Charlotte, played by Irina Fadina, appears playful, hiding her own unsettledness and indecision behind a wide smile. The “gentle creature” Dunyasha, embodied by Yulia Zykova, reliably portrays inappropriate delight in everything that is happening and reluctantly brushes off the clerk Epikhodov (Sergei Gabrielyan), who proposed to her. 
Farewell to family noble nest The adventure that all the heroes face will not be saved by either deliberate fun or dancing with music. Illusions dissipate and the words of Anya sound like a call, consoling her mother and persuading her to quickly part with the old house: “...We will plant new garden, more luxurious than this, you will see it, you will understand, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour...”
Everyone has the right to a “new garden”, but not everyone can afford it.
Sabadash Vladimir.
Photo – Yuri Pokrovsky.
Sergey Baimukhametov
Gaidar robbed us, Chubais abandoned the whole country like the last sucker, and you scribblers call them reformers!
This is how my classmate Sashka Zubarev, a former sixth-grade lathe-borer from the once powerful Avangard defense plant, immediately began our meeting 25 years ago. Since we are childhood friends, we yelled at each other without being offended.
It was us, the intelligentsia, who were allowed around the world! - I advanced. - They gave us paper vouchers. And you, hard workers, got factories! You see, here you go!!!
Why the hell do I need this plant! - Sashka shouted. - What am I going to do with it? You know that the director immediately surrounded the plant with some small companies, cooperatives, and pumped all the money there?!
Where were you looking, you’re a shareholder, the owner?!
What kind of boss am I? These are your words from the newspapers. And I sold the shares a long time ago... You sell everything when you don’t get paid for six months.
You see, you sold your shares cheaply to someone else’s uncle, and now you’re crying...
Yes, it’s always easy for you to say! - Sashka exploded. “You don’t need to eat or drink, just to write your own, but we need to live.” And what do we understand about these actions?!
It was then, 25 years ago, in sixth-grade turner Sashka Zubarev that I saw... landowner, noblewoman Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. The same one from Chekhov’s great and mysterious play. I’m not saying this out of love for paradoxes: in the early 90s of the last century, Soviet workers and peasants repeated the fate of Chekhov’s nobles.
Chekhov called “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy, he wrote to friends: “What I came out with was not a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce... The whole play is cheerful, frivolous... The last act will be cheerful...”
Corypheas Art Theater They didn’t pay attention to the genre designation and staged a drama. According to the scheme “outgoing class - incoming class.”
“Why is my play so persistently called a drama on posters and in newspaper advertisements? - Chekhov complained in a letter to O.L. Knipper. “Nemirovich and Alekseev (Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky - S.B.) see in my play positively not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both have never read my play carefully...”
Stanislavsky objected: “This is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, it is a tragedy, no matter what the outcome is.” better life You didn’t open in the last act.”
Time has shown that Stanislavski was right. But Chekhov was very mistaken. Sometimes the artist himself is not able to appreciate and understand what came from his pen. In the same way, Cervantes conceived Don Quixote as... a parody! Yes, yes, like a parody of chivalric romances. And what happened was what happened.
So Chekhov insisted on the comedy of The Cherry Orchard. Although of all the characters, with some convention, only Gaev can be considered comedic, who responds to Lopakhin’s reasonable proposals: “What nonsense!”, and on every occasion mutters about playing billiards: “Who?.. Doublet in the corner... Croise in middle..."
In fact, there is nothing funny about it.
“The Cherry Orchard” hit the dramatic nerve of time. Peasant, serf, feudal Russia became industrial, bourgeois, capitalist Russia. The way of life changed. And already quite revered people at meetings, in society - not only languid or violent descendants of ancient families, not rulers of thought - poets and historians, not well-born guards officers, but factory owners, bankers, plebeians with a lot of money, in tailcoats bursting on their corpulent bodies , with the manners of yesterday's grooms, clerks or sharpers. “Clean” Russia recoiled. But money is money, and not just money - but the industrial and agricultural power behind it. “Clean” Russia frowned and disdained, but could no longer prevent the nouveau riche from entering high society- almost on an equal footing. At the same time, figures in the artistic and theatrical world, receiving considerable sums from merchants and industrialists for “sacred art,” did not hesitate to openly despise their patrons, mocked them, and called them tit titichs.
And naturally, as a reaction to what was happening, nostalgic feelings for the past, for the fading “nests of the nobility” flared up in society. Hence, in theaters there is a “beautiful cherry orchard”, “noble care of the nobility”, white dress Ranevskaya... At the same time, Bunin wrote noble-nostalgic “ Antonov apples”, about which one single critic dared to remark: “These apples do not smell democratic at all.”
And in Soviet times The artistic intelligentsia saw in the play only the “helpless and naive Ranevskaya”, the “beautiful garden” and the “rude capitalist Lopakhin”.
Yes, Yermolay Lopakhin was the most unlucky of all. They saw in him only the onset of “his obscenity of capital.” One of the newspapers of that time called him a “fist-trader.” And again Chekhov protested in vain: “Lopakhin’s role is central, if it fails, then the play will fail. Lopakhin should not be played as a loudmouth, it does not have to be a merchant. He is a gentle man."
Alas. The voice of one crying. Surprisingly, the generally democratically minded press of that time, angrily condemning the recent shameful serfdom, nevertheless did not want to understand and accept Lopakhin, the grandson and son of a serf. Because he's rich. If he had been orphaned and poor, begged for alms on the porch, hung out in taverns or committed robbery on the roads, they would have pitied him, admired him, seen in him “a victim of vile Russian reality.” And the young, healthy and enterprising Russian peasant Ermolai Lopakhin was not even needed by the then publicists, and even more so by aesthetic critics.
Yermolai’s peasant origins did not save him in Soviet times either. In the slacker, hanger-on and chatterbox Petya Trofimov, communist ideologists saw almost a harbinger of the future. And Lopakhin was a “capitalist”.
In addition, new, already Soviet aesthetes, caring about “spirituality,” again and again began to repeat the accusations of “soulless pragmatism” that had already been made at the beginning of the century against Lopakhin with “his project of turning over the cherry orchard into profitable dachas.”
And for some reason, neither then nor today did it occur to anyone that Lopakhin did not want to cut down the garden and “destroy the beauty” - he wanted to save people! This same Ranevskaya and this same Gaev. Because he remembered the random affection of Lady Ranevskaya in childhood, when his father broke his face and bled. I'll remember her for the rest of my life kind words, consolation, and now, when the opportunity arose, I decided to repay kindness for kindness. Not about theories, not about “love of beauty,” but about simple humanity, about the desire to help helpless people - that’s what Lopakhin thinks about!
But the most swipe Ermolai Lopakhin received it already in modern times, in the 90s of the last century, at the time of the Yeltsin-Gaidar-Chubais reforms, which were cursed by the waste-turner Sashka Zubarev. This time, essay journalists did not write about “beauty” or “spirituality,” but zealously blew trumpets “ market economy" Articles appeared in the newspapers, the authors of which proclaimed Lopakhin - who do you think he is? - the forerunner, the ancestor of the “new Russians”. Hooray! Direct continuity of generations! Together we are raising Russia!
But the point is not in the money - but in its origin.
Lopakhin is a natural manifestation of Russian life in the transition period - from feudalism to capitalism. The father, having received his “freedom,” started a business, the son continued: “I sowed a thousand dessiatines of poppy seeds in the spring and now I have earned forty thousand net.”
Everything - with your own mind and hump.
And the capital of the new Russians is a plundered national property. Moreover, the old party and Soviet leaders, the new democratic quick grabbers and the eternal criminals at all times united touchingly in theft.
Lopakhins really created new Russia. And the current world-eaters can easily destroy it. Because they brazenly feast during the plague, in front of the robbed people. Why today, 28 years after the collapse of the USSR, two-thirds (according to sociologists - 68%) of Russians want to return to Soviet Union? Yes, the USSR is mainly idealized by those who do not know and have not experienced all its “charms”. This is not nostalgia, this is a myth. And it is even more difficult to fight it, because the confessors of the myth practically do not perceive the voice of reason and facts. But the idealization of the USSR did not arise out of nowhere. It began with the stories of the fathers, with their violated sense of justice, the natural feeling of people deceived and insulted.
Gaev and Ranevskaya could survive and even rise by renting out plots. Lopakhin offered them a hundred times. And in response I heard from Gaev: “Who?.. Doublet in the corner... Croise in the middle...” Ranevskaya and Gaev are pale infirmities, people incapable of anything, even their instinct of self-preservation has degenerated.
Modern Lopakhins, at the very beginning of economic reforms, suggested to workers a hundred times: “Understand, legally you are the owners of the factories, let’s, before it’s too late, switch to producing other products that will be bought!” And in response they heard: “Let the director decide what we are. Only the director doesn’t itch.” The Lopakhins urged: “But you are the owners, choose a smart director!” The workers, looking at each other, decided: “Let’s go and have a beer, why sit around in vain? There’s nothing to do anyway.” That is the same thing. Typical gays on a mass scale: “Who?.. Doublet in the corner... Croise in the middle...”
And then the modern Lopakhins retreated. Everyone muttered to themselves, like Chekhov’s Lopakhin: “I’ll either burst into tears, or scream, or faint. I can't..."
And - they left. The fate of factories, factories, and workers is now known. The fortunes of directors, former ministers, fast-talking democrats and other privatizers are also known.
I repeat, not for the love of paradoxes: in the early 90s of the last century, Soviet workers and peasants repeated the fate of Chekhov’s nobles. Centuries of dependency led to the genetic degeneration of the individuals who made up the nobility. It’s the same with the eternal hard workers - workers and peasants. Soviet decades of social dependency, when everything was decided for them, led them to the same thing.
The result is a weakened will, an unwillingness to think about oneself and one’s destiny, and an inability to make decisions. The desire to hide, to get away from problems, incomprehensible conversations. Typical Ranevsko-Gaevsky complex. Anemia.
The caustic, bilious man Bunin, who considered all of Chekhov’s plays far-fetched and weak, sarcastically remarked about the actual life, real basis of the plot: “What kind of owner, the landowner will plant a huge garden with cherries. This has never happened before!”
Bunin meant that it would be absurd to plant the entire garden with cherries; in the manor's estates, cherry trees made up only part of the garden. However, let’s take Chekhov’s cherry orchard as a separate, special case that has become a symbol.
But if we continue Bunin’s parallels, then not a single one normal person will not “plant” such a thing as a socialist economy. However, it existed. In vast areas of countries and peoples. And these gigantic, unprofitable factories, collective farms and state farms, which do not pay for themselves, are memorable and dear to many people as part of their life, their youth. Just as the unfortunate Ranevskaya loved her cherry orchard: unprofitable, bearing fruit once every two years. Lopakhin said: “The only remarkable thing about this garden is that it is very large. Cherries are born once every two years, and there’s nowhere to put them, no one buys them.”
You can't skip history. It turned out the way it did. But still, people could decide something and turn it their own way. And they probably still can. Those same turners, bakers and plowmen. Especially if you consider that the Lopakhins, Morozovs, Mamontovs did not fall from the sky to us in their time, but came from the same workers and peasants.
It is clear and natural that we talk about us and about us. For any reason or another.
Let’s just keep in mind that “The Cherry Orchard” is a global phenomenon and a global mystery. It seems that this drama is not just Russian, but exclusively Russian. Even to us it is not at all clear, misunderstood and not fully understood. And what can we say about foreigners? For example, which of them, who know little about our serfdom, will understand the muttering of the lackey Firs:
“Before the disaster, there was the same thing: the owl was screaming, and the samovar was humming uncontrollably.”
Gaev asks him: “Before what misfortune?”
Firs replies: “Before the will.”
Yes, one can assume that this is the voice of a slave soul, for which freedom and freedom are misfortune. But is such an answer not enough for the global popularity of the play? We know that Firs may have had something completely different in mind: what the abolition of serfdom turned out to be for the peasants, when they were left without land, with unaffordable redemption payments, when the serfs rebelled against... the abolition of serfdom. But foreigners cannot know about this. And about other exclusively Russian plots of the play, too. But for some reason, “The Cherry Orchard” is staged in all countries and on all continents. 102 years ago the premiere took place on German in the New Vienna Theater, 100 years ago - in the Berlin People's Theater. It would seem that Hamlet also asked: “What is he to Hecuba? What is Hecuba to him?
What do they care about Ranevskaya’s crying?
However, no. “The Cherry Orchard” is still the most famous work of Russian drama in the world.
In the photo: Danila Kozlovsky as Lopakhin in the play Maly drama theater St. Petersburg
The familiar and seemingly traditional “The Cherry Orchard,” staged according to famous work Chekhov, can be staged in different ways. The team of the Sovremennik Theater managed to find a solution and demonstrate a special interpretation of the play, highlighting their production against the backdrop of many analogues.
Today, tickets to The Cherry Orchard remain in demand. Although it has been in the repertoire for many years, it remains a sell-out show. Spectators have been going to it for several generations, organizing family and group trips.
About the history of the creation and success of “The Cherry Orchard”
“The Cherry Orchard” was first staged in 1904 on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. Although many years have passed since then, the feelings, thoughts and experiences of the characters in the play, their absurd and largely unsuccessful destinies still touch and excite every spectator who comes to the performance, regardless of what stage it is staged on. The viewer has a lot of options.
The premiere of “The Cherry Orchard” at Sovremennik took place in 1997. It was no coincidence that Galina Volchek chose one of the most popular and unsolved plays by the genius of Russian prose. According to the director, at the end of the 20th century, Chekhov’s theme turned out to be as relevant as it was for the author’s contemporaries. Volchek, as usual, made the right choice.
— The performance, despite its programmatic basis, was applauded by Paris, Marseille and Berlin.
— The Daily News wrote about him with delight.
“It was he who opened the famous Broadway tour of Sovremennik in 1997.”
— For them, the theater was awarded the National American Drama Desk Award.
Features of the Sovremennik performance
“The Cherry Orchard” directed by Galina Volchek is a bright and tragic story. In it, a harsh view of the heroes is inextricably intertwined with subtle and soft poetics. The awareness of the mercilessness of time and forever lost opportunities surprisingly coexists with a vague hope for the best.
— G. Volchek managed to breathe new life into a textbook Chekhov play, building the performance on a subtle play of halftones, to show in it the amazing unity of passing eras and human destinies.
— The cherry orchard itself in the play became acting character. As a symbol of the disappearing past, the heroes constantly peer into it with longing and bitterness.
It is impossible not to note the interesting scenographic work of P. Kaplevich and P. Kirillov. They “grew” a garden and “built” a house in an unusual constructivist style. The impeccably tailored costumes by V. Zaitsev perfectly fit the era and the mood of the viewer.
Actors and roles
In the first cast of the play, G. Volchek gathered the best forces of the Sovremennik troupe. The magnificent Marina Neyolova in the role of Ranevskaya and Igor Kvasha, who brilliantly played Gaev, were given a standing ovation by the audience at every performance. Today, 20 years after the premiere, the cast of “The Cherry Orchard” has undergone certain changes.
— After Kvasha’s death, the baton of Gaev’s role was picked up by the Honored Artist of Russia V. Vetrov, and succeeded in it.
— Elena Yakovleva, who shone in the role of Varya, was replaced by Maria Anikanova, who captivates many viewers with her talents.
— Olga Drozdova plays the governess Charlotte perfectly.
— The permanent performers of the main roles, Marina Neyolova as Ranevskaya and Sergei Garmash as Lopatin, still amaze the audience with their inspired performances.
All the actors accurately convey ageless wisdom and carefully expose the nerve of Chekhov's dramaturgy. Having bought tickets for “The Cherry Orchard” at Sovremennik, you will be convinced that even the usual storylines can be conveyed to the viewer in a unique way.
A.P. Chekhov
Cherry Orchard
Characters and performers:
- Ranevskaya Lyubov Andreevna, landowner -
- Anya, her daughter -
- Varya, her adopted daughter -
- Gaev Leonid Andreevich, brother of Ranevskaya -
- Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich, merchant -
- Trofimov Petr Sergeevich, student -
- Simeonov-Pishchik Boris Borisovich, landowner - ,
- Charlotte Ivanovna, governess -
- Epikhodov Semyon Panteleevich, clerk -
Ranevskaya - Gaeva played.
Among the guests at the premiere were the Minister of Culture of the Moscow Region Oksana Kosareva, director Alexander Adabashyan, actor and director Sergei Puskepalis, choreographer Sergei Filin, composer Maxim Dunaevsky, figure skaters Roman Kostomarov, Oksana Domnina, Ilya Averbukh, actors Alexander Oleshko, Boris Galkin, Katerina Shpitsa, Evgenia Kregzhde, Ilya Malakov, journalist and TV presenter Vadim Vernik, artistic director theater "Russian Ballet" Vyacheslav Gordeev and many others.
Written in 1903, at the turn of the era, Chekhov's play and is still modern today. In the theater's production, Lopakhin's personal drama comes to the fore. The story of the loss of the cherry orchard, staged by Sergei Bezrukov, becomes the story of long-term and hopeless love - Lopakhin’s love for Ranevskaya. About love, which he will have to uproot from his heart, like a cherry orchard, in order to live on. The director of the production, Sergei Bezrukov, admits that the concept of the play was largely based on the acting nature of Anton Khabarov, who he chose for the role of Lopakhin.
Sergey Bezrukov, production director: “Lopakhin is played by Anton Khabarov - he has both strength and vulnerability. Our story is about crazy, passionate love. Lopakhin fell in love with Ranevskaya as a boy, and many years later he continues to love her, and cannot help himself. This is a story about a man who rose from the very bottom and made himself - and he was driven not by a passion for profit, but by a great love for a woman whom he idolized all his life and strove to become worthy of her. It seems to me that with Anton Khabarov we have returned to the original image of Lopakhin, as Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote him. Ermolai Lopakhin is not a loud-mouthed man, but an intelligent person, he is sensual and charismatic, he is 100% a man, like Anton Khabarov, and he is very sincere, he loves platonically, as a man should love, to truly love.”
It is known that Chekhov dreamed that the first performer of the role of Ermolai Lopakhin would be Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky himself - he saw this character as subtle, vulnerable, intelligent, despite his low origin.
“We started from Chekhov’s letters,- says the performer leading role Lopakhina Anton Khabarov, - how Chekhov wanted his hero to be, he wanted Stanislavsky to play this role. When we were working on the play, we found many parallels between Chekhov and Lopakhin. Lopakhin had a tyrant father who beat him with a stick until he bled. Chekhov’s father also beat him with a stick, he was a serf.”
The image of Ranevskaya also became unusual in Sergei Bezrukov’s performance. The director “returned” to the age of the heroine, which is indicated by the author - Lyubov Andreevna is 35 years old, she is a young woman full of passions.
“I have a very tragic character,- says the performer of the role of Ranevskaya Karina Andolenko. — A person who has experienced many losses and lost faith begins to commit thousands of ridiculous actions. She understands that she is being used, that she is not loved as she would like, but at the same time a person remains in her soul. Therefore, she does not drag Lopakhin into this pool, but tells him that he is worthy of a real pure love, which Ranevskaya can no longer give him. This play is about the mismatch of love, and it is a tragedy.”
Next to the unrequited love of the main character, personal dramas unfold for almost all the characters in the play. Epikhodov, Charlotte Ivanovna, Varya love unrequitedly - all the characters who are capable of truly loving.
Chekhov's theme of a passing era and the inevitable loss of the values of the past sounds no less clear and piercing in the production. The famous cherry orchard in the play not only acquired a completely visible image - during the course of the action it blooms, fades, and in the finale literally disappears from the face of the earth. The Cherry Orchard, according to the director’s plan, became full-fledged actor performance:
"Except for Lopakhin important character nature is here. The action of the play takes place against its backdrop, in the cherry orchard,- says director Sergei Bezrukov. — Despite the fact that theater is a very conventional matter, it still seems to me that today’s audience is a little tired of solving puzzles, certain constructions on the stage, trying to understand what exactly they mean. The viewer missed classical theater. Chekhov pays a lot of attention to describing the scene of action: Gaev speaks about nature, and Lopakhin has a whole monologue: “Lord, you gave us huge forests, the deepest horizons, and being here, we ourselves must be truly giants...” It was important for me to show a play about the death of a once beautiful civilization. About how, against the backdrop of magnificent nature, these beautiful people they destroy themselves through their inaction, drowning in vices, drowning in their own internal dirt.”
At the end of the play, against the backdrop of an uprooted cherry orchard, in the smoky emptiness of the naked stage, lonely Firs is left alone with an old toy house. But the director leaves hope for the viewer: all the actors come out to bow with a small shoot of the cherry tree, which means there will be a new cherry orchard!
We thank our partner, the Cherry Orchard company, for creating a cozy, stunning atmosphere of the estate in our foyer!
The Moscow Provincial Theater will present its version of Anton Chekhov's most famous play. Stage director - Sergei Bezrukov. Anton Khabarov will play the role of Lopakhin, Karina Andolenko will play Ranevskaya, Alexander Tyutin will play Gaev, and Gela Meskhi will play the role of Petya Trofimov.
Written in 1903, at the turn of the epoch, Chekhov's play is more relevant today than ever. After all, even now we live in an era of breaking times, changing formations. In the theater's production, Lopakhin's personal drama comes to the fore, but Chekhov's theme of a passing era and the inevitable loss of the values of the past sounds no less clear and piercing.
The story of the loss of the cherry orchard, staged by Sergei Bezrukov, becomes the story of long-term and hopeless love - Lopakhin's love for Ranevskaya. About love, which Lopakhin needs to uproot from his heart, like a cherry orchard, in order to live on.
The famous cherry orchard in the play will take on a completely visible image - the audience will see how it blooms, fades, and in the finale literally disappears from the face of the earth.
The director of the production, Sergei Bezrukov, admits that the concept of the play was largely based on the acting nature of Anton Khabarov, who he chose for the role of Lopakhin. It is known that Chekhov dreamed that the first performer of the role of Ermolai Lopakhin would be Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky himself - he saw this character as subtle, vulnerable, aristocratic, despite his low origin. This is exactly how Sergei Bezrukov sees Lopakhin.
Sergey Bezrukov, production director:
“Lopakhin is played by Anton Khabarov - he has both strength and vulnerability. Our story is about crazy, passionate love. Lopakhin fell in love with Ranevskaya as a boy, and many years later he continues to love her, and cannot help himself. This is a story about a man who rose from the very bottom and made himself - and he was driven not by a passion for profit, but by a great love for a woman whom he idolized all his life and strove to become worthy of her.”
Work on the play began in the summer, and part of the rehearsals took place at the estate of K. S. Stanislavsky in Lyubimovka, where Chekhov stayed in the summer of 1902 and where he came up with the idea for this play. A sketch of S. Bezrukov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” was shown in June of this year in the natural scenery of the estate, in a real cherry orchard. The screening took place at the opening of the Stanislavsky Season festival. Summer Festival provincial theaters.
Cast: Anton Khabarov, Karina Andolenko, Alexander Tyutin, Natalia Shklyaruk, Viktor Shutov, Stepan Kulikov, Anna Gorushkina, Alexandrina Pitirimova, Danil Ivanov, Maria Dudkevich and others.
Theatrical performance "The Cherry Orchard". Premiere!" took place in Moscow Provincial Theater December 2, 2017.