Review: Kirsikkatarha
A powerful interpretation of the Cherry Orchard at the turn of the times
In Chekhov’s last play, the mood does not thicken with dialogue, but with silence.
The Cherry Orchard is a great debut at the KOM Theatre, director Lauri Maijala, who has shown his talent in Turku, Oulu and elsewhere, at the Helsinki City Theatre’s
in a fresh job. The choice is challenging. It is noteworthy that the Helsinki City Theatre and its predecessors have probably never performed The Cherry Orchard. This alone justifies the inclusion of a classic work in the repertoire.
In our everyday lives, filled with non-stop noise, it would sometimes be good to remember Anton Chekhov’s (1860–1904) idea that the greatest happiness and the greatest sorrow are most often expressed through silence.
In Chekhov’s last play, The Cherry Orchard (1904), the mood does not thicken with dialogue, but with silence.
The play takes place on the eve of the Russian Revolution. The old truths of the nobility have lost their effectiveness and new social laws are taking shape.
Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy, but it is the viewer’s main
how you experience it. To me, Maijala’s subtle interpretation, despite all its boisterousness, appeared as a romantically melancholy, lyrical tragedy. In addition to the comedic features, the play alternates between farce, grotesque and absurdity, as the harshness of everyday life slaps nobles living in unrealistic dreams in the face.
The main character, Lyubov Ranevskaya, has to sell his mansion. Traditional family farm, forced auction due to debts.
The tragedy of the past, the memory of the drowned boy Grisha, holds the widow in its grip. Years earlier, he fled the event to Paris. He doesn’t want to figure out his past, but he doesn’t know how to live in the present either. About this, the student Trofimov (Tommi Eronen) says: “In order to start in the present, we must first redeem our past.”
In Maijala’s opinion, this is the core sentence of the play. “It’s easy to say and extremely difficult to implement. But, it is a necessity if the alternative is silence, lack of passion and bitterness,” Maijala emphasizes in the script.
The characters in The Cherry Orchard talk past each other, as is customary for the characters in Chekhov’s plays. Chekhov’s contemporaries interpreted hopelessness as a description
that everyday life was depicted without a deeper meaning, devoid of idealism and hope.
The essence of Chekhovian drama is that people eat dinner, they just eat dinner, and during that time the foundation of their happiness is laid or their lives are destroyed. The deaths in Chekhov’s plays are not solutions, but are intended to clearly show that there is no way out of the situation.
Even in The Cherry Orchard, the dialogues are interrupted, because the characters are not characterized by their actions but by their inaction. They don’t need words for their actions, but to kill time. The characters do not seem to have the aspirations or the need to change their circumstances even under duress. One of the most descriptive phrases in the play is: “You have suffered nothing from what you are talking about”.
WHEN THE CHARACTERS are detached from their own time, they easily become clowns that no one understands. Anachronism in temporal relationships lurks in this performance as well. At times, Maijala’s direction is close to this bar, but stylishly the performance skips the pitfalls and slipping into a tennis shoe play.
The casting is successful. Heidi Herala is the charming dynamo of the performance, who takes over the stage with her long monologues and flexible movements. His outsider from the life of the people of the manor is emphasized by detaching him from the action scenes from time to time. The period costume is magnificent, and Herala wears the tamines as nobly as a degenerate noble lady should.
A particularly fine, strong interpretation is achieved by Emilia Sinisalo in the role of Varja. A good choice is also Chike Ohanwe for the role of Lophan, who has risen from a family of serfs to become nouveau riche. The young Sanna Majuri has star material in all her sweet melancholy in the role of Dunjaša.
The prevailing restlessness and uncertainty are depicted by the actors’ almost compulsive movements, which are more numerous than they are. All the time fidgeting is a bit disturbing
the depth of interpretations.
But, I have to say that the finest and most deeply impressive thing about this carnivalesque performance is the absolutely wonderful music composed by Lauri Porra and the string quartet that interprets it in a delightful way. This is a lucid insight into the pervasive performance of Chekhov’s music.
Janne Vasama’s set design is abundantly colourful and, especially towards the end of the performance, extremely beautiful.
At the end of the play, Firs, an old servant forgotten in the mansion, hears the woodcutters’ axe blows from the garden. This has been interpreted as a prophecy of a new era. When the merchant Lopahin buys a cherry orchard and has it cut down to make way for villa plots, the play also takes on nostalgic tones: the nobility gives way to the bourgeoisie. Beauty values are subordinated to economic gain.
I’ve seen the Cherry Orchard, usually called the Cherry Orchard, countless times, in several different theatres, even in Russia, and each time its final scene is moving. And how it is done by the tar harvester Seppo Maijala, the old servant Firs. Left alone in an abandoned house, he says heartbreakingly: “They forgot me here.”
This tragedy of the old servant can be compared to the harsh working life of today. The hosts, faithfully served and loved by Firs, forget him harshly, like an old mitten, when they no longer need his services.