Review: Kirsikkatarha
Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at the Helsinki City Theatre
Anton Chekhov has named his last play The Cherry Orchard a comedy, but I still felt awkward to listen to the audience laugh even when the collapse of everything, the sale of the mansion and the toppling of the cherry orchard is inevitable.
Lauri Maijala has directed the first two acts of The Cherry Orchard, emphasizing comedy. There is a lot of movement, courtesy, entrances and exits, and the speech is loud, almost screaming. The audience laughs and applauds the mishaps as if in a farce. In the second half, however, the expression is already in tragedy, but part of the audience still seems to be watching the comedy.
The central character of the cherry orchard, Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya (Heidi Herala), returns to the farm she owns after years of absence. Before leaving, her 7-year-old son Grisha drowned in a river near the farm, and Ranevskaya still grieves for her son and feels guilty about his death. He returns penniless, and his brother, Gajev (Kari Mattila), who lives on the farm, is only interested in playing pool and lazing around. The sale of the family farm is ahead, and the auction date has already been agreed.
Lopahin (Chike Ohenwe), a merchant who has become rich through his own work and whose father and grandfather have been slaves in the house, advises how to settle debts without selling the farm: the cherry orchard must be cut down, the farm’s land parcelled out and rented out to the townspeople as holiday home plots.
“LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA Hakata? Dear one, forgive me, but you don’t understand at all. If there is anything interesting, even noteworthy, in the whole governorate, it is only our cherry orchard.”
Ranevskaya lives in the past and does not want to see reality or the future. She has escaped her son’s death by traveling away, lived with a man who has treated her badly, and when the money has run out, left him. Ranevskaya is guided by emotions, not reality. He gives the beggar a gold coin, even though the farm has no money to feed its workers.
Ranevskaya is the focal point of the play and Heidi Herala is the bubbling centre of La Grande Dame. Heidi Herala has the full range of emotions at her disposal in Ranevskaya. He is both sensitive and, when necessary, furious. For the actress, who is celebrating her 35th anniversary as an artist, the role of Ranevskaya gives her the opportunity to shine with all her skills. Being under the guidance of my own son has also been good, mannerisms have been eliminated. The programme booklet of the Cherry Orchard contains excerpts from Heidi Herala’s work diary and one mention: “There have been a few stern glances from the “Mother and son” section.” Whatever the reason for the look, it certainly served the end result.
If Ranevskaya is emotional, then her opposite is Lopah’s, reason, even though she calls herself a fool and an idiot. For Lopahin, things can be arranged with money, without emotions. What it costs is a more important question for him than memories related to things, places or the cherry orchard.
“I have never met such frivolous, so inappropriate, so strange people as you. You are told in plain Russian that your farm is being sold, and you are as if you do not understand.”
Chike Ohenwe is believable in her role as a descendant of former slaves and an enriched merchant. He is not the villain of the play. She is not just a scoundrel who, on the one hand, remembers how well Ranevskaya has treated her and how she loves her and wants to help her, and then rejoices after shouting the house and the cherry orchard for herself. Another “realist”, Emilia Sinisalo, who plays Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter and Varja, who is in love with Lopahin, also plays a great role.
Lauri Maijala has also directed his father Seppo Maijala, who plays the role of the family’s ancient servant Firs. The almost 90-year-old Firskin longs for the past, and at the same time ties Russia’s chain of changes to ending slavery. For Firs, the liberation of slaves was an accident, because before he knew who was who, “now everything is in shock, nothing can be figured out”.
Lopahin represents the wealthy bourgeoisie who clings to materialism, while Trifomov (Tommi Eronen), the eternal student who is ridiculed by others, represents the intellectuals who also draw a picture of the future. The theme of the work, which is also familiar from Chekhov’s Three Sisters, is repeated in the speech:
“TROFIMOV [–] In order to begin to live in the present, we must first redeem our past, put an end to it, and we can redeem it only by suffering, only by working immensely and uninterruptedly.”
Already at the beginning of the story, it became clear that the second half of the performance spoke to me differently from the shouting and courtesy at the beginning. Visually, too, the performance comes into its own after the intermission. Janne Vasama has created some great stage images. The store is gone, and while waiting for the end result, the people of the house dance and celebrate “like it’s the last day”.
Lauri Porra has composed a wonderful music for the play. The string quartet that closes the third act is of such a quality that I hope and believe that I will hear it again even detached from the play. The audience deservedly rewarded the performance of Siljamari Heikinheimo, Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä, Hanna Hohti and Petja Kainulainen.
In just over a month, I’ve seen three Chekhov’s plays: The Seagull as a performance at the Vilnius City Theatre, Paavo Westerberg’s Three Sisters at the National Theatre for the second time, and now Lauri Maijala’s interpretation of The Cherry Orchard. All the performances have been very different from each other. The Lithuanian Seagull was stripped of everything external, focused on the text and fine acting. Westerberg’s Three Sisters was powerful both visually and interpretively, at least for me, the Case of the Decade.
Somewhere in between, I place the Maijala Cherry Orchard. It has its strong moments, it has great acting, great music, powerful visuals. I missed even more what is summed up in one of the play’s lines: “What plays do you watch, look at yourselves!”
The Cherry Orchard (also known as the Cherry Orchard in Finnish) was Anton Chekhov’s last play. It premiered in 1904, the same year the writer died. The text quotes are from Martti Anhava’s Finnish translation, which is also the basis for the City Theatre’s performance. The photos were taken by Stefan Bremer for the Kupunginteatteri in Helsinki.