…and Bill Fry sent Bill Risebero this letter…
I had hoped to catch you after church this morning but missed you somehow and cannot leave it any longer without telling you much I admired your production of The Cherry Orchard. I saw it on Friday night and was really thrilled. Chekhov isn’t easy; perhaps the main difficulty is the fact that the plays are translated, not only with a language difference but also with a different theatrical tradition. On the whole English plays go to great lengths to make sure the audience knows who’s who, but Chekhov makes no concessions in that direction at all. Seeing one of his plays is like going to a party where you don’t know anybody; at first you can’t understand what they’re talking about, and then gradually you find yourself involved, almost by accident.
When I was young, people played Chekhov with almost religious reverence. If one had laughed at anything, the whole audience would have turned round and whispered ‘Hush!’ In The Love of Four Colonels Ustinov wrote a wonderful parody of that kind of Chekhov performance, with a young man in uniform sitting on a garden swing and yearning over a young lady in muslin absorbed in her embroidery. Between the long pauses they come to realise that the day before they had been alone in the house together, but of course it was too late now.
Your production was nothing like that. It was busy and active and noisy. It was gorgeously physical—the dancing was a delight, and so was the music—never dragging for a moment. The exceptionally three-dimensional stage added to the sense of activity, all of which made a wonderful ironic contrast to the fact that nothing was really happening at all; everyone was sitting passively, waiting for the avoidable blow to fall.
You did wonders with the actors and not only with the large parts. Sarah Day as Dunyasha seemed to me very good indeed, and so did Emma Lyndon-Stanford as Charlotta. As for Nicholas Holzapfel, he made me want to smack Yasha’s head. David Gardner was an impressive surprise as Firs; with his bushy hair and strong body it was difficult for him to look old enough, but at any rate his performance persuaded me. Malcolm Stern was delightfully absurd as the needy landowner, and Adam Baxter made Gayev loveable as well as ludicrous.
It was an inspiration to cast Adrian Hughes as Lopakhin; he didn’t need to act the part, he just was it, impatient with the Ranevskys for their indecision and then totally at a loss himself when confronted with Hoda Ali as poor Varya. As for the absurd non-love affair between Trofimov and Anya, Matt Williams and Michaela Clement-Hayes made me giggle a lot. Of course, the star part is Ranyevskaya, and Bonnie played it like a star. She was beautiful, touching and infuriating all at once. I don’t see how she could have done it better.
I have already spoken to Annie Duarte and Maggie Willmer, but please pass on my congratulations to Christine for the costumes, which were admirable… Altogether, a lovely show!