Review: Kirsikkatarha
The Return of the Prodigal Mother – Heidi Herala shines in The Cherry Orchard, directed by her son Lauri Maijala
In his Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov reveals the lovable, destructive stupidity of man. The individual and the community are threatened by disaster, but the people in the play are just drinking wine and dancing.
The bench artist saw Lauri Maijala’s direction at the Helsinki City Theatre.
Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard is a story about the return of a prodigal mother.
Ranevskaya returns from Paris to her country home with wood bare. The old, once prosperous family farm is about to be sold due to debts.
The situation and space could still be saved, but the decadent family is unable to function.
They prefer to sip wine and dance in the shade of the most beautiful cherry trees in the world.
One of the reasons for Chekhov’s enchantment and timelessness is that in his plays, every character, from the main roles to the smallest glimpses, is written as a whole person.
For me, Chekhov’s plays are about a struggle for survival.
These people try their best to stay afloat. For one it means cynicism, for another it means action or at least seemingly sensible tinkering, for a third it means self-deception, for a fourth it means forgetting the present and directing all energy to the future.
Each character carries a full life with them, each with their own fate and pain.
The cast of the Helsinki City Theatre makes the most of the roles.
Lauri Maijala is now guiding his mother and father for the first time. Heidi Herala is Ranevskaya, Seppo Maijala is the family’s ancient servant Firs.
Heidi Herala’s Ranevskaya is a brave figure. Everyone adores him, and I can understand why! She is the queen of the cherry orchard, kind-hearted, full of love and yet selfish, completely reckless in her spending.
Ranevskaya is an impractical, hardened romantic who eventually goes back to Paris to the man who destroyed her. Ranevskaya calmly states that she is spending the family’s last money in Paris, the money with which her daughter could have built her future.
Herala’s body language is wonderful to watch. She bounces excitedly like a little girl, celebrates wildly, dances elegantly, is feminine and noble. In the last act, Ranevskaya ages for years due to the loss.
Seppo Maijala’s Firs staggers on stage, barely staying upright. She takes care of Ranevskaya’s brother Gaev like a small child. A big man takes care of himself as a matter of course.
Kari Mattila as Gajev gives the audience a few of the best laughs. Gaev has a rock-solid view on everything, even though he doesn’t actually do anything at all.
Anton Chekhov once called The Cherry Orchard a four-act comedy. Konstantin Stanislavski, who directed the premiere in 1904, saw the story as a pure tragedy. In the interpretations of different directors, the emphases of comedy and tragedy vary.
Under Lauri Maijala’s direction, the comedy is strong.
Rarely have I laughed so much while watching Chekhov. Next to me in the twilight of the theatre hall sits an elderly lady with whom we sometimes laugh together, with tears in our eyes.
Still, the tragedy will not go away.
The play deals with huge themes. That is another reason for Chekhov’s eternal relevance.
Trofimov, an eternal student and idealist, preaches to the gentry about how their (read: our) luxurious lifestyle is based on the exploitation of the poor that has continued from generation to generation.
Tommi Eronen is an amusing apparition in the role of Tromifov, a shabby man in a corduroy coat with an unkempt beard, hair standing up and his glasses crooked. Everyone is used to his declarations, and therefore they do not need to be taken seriously.
Who would listen to a man over forty who, in Ranevskaya’s words, is “still in the second year of high school”.
Lopahin, a descendant of the serfs, also tries to bring his former masters to their senses. She insists on Ranevskaya and everyone who agrees to listen to the fact that the cherry orchard can still be saved, here are the means, act!
But the cry doesn’t get through.
It feels like watching a video clip of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg giving a speech at the Davos Economic Forum.
Lopahin is played by Chike Ohanwe. When Lopahin tells how his father was beaten with a stick or how they couldn’t even get into their masters’ kitchen, the whole cruel history of slavery suddenly enters the show.
The stage image, in which the rest of the group stands tightly on the other side of the stage and Lopahin alone far away from the others, already takes a stand on the rise of racism in the present day.
Ohanwe plays Lopahin energetically, brightly and emotionally, bringing the performance towards the present with his sneakers and hoodies. Great performance and great casting!
The unfulfilled love story of Lopahin and Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter Varja is painful to watch.
“A frustrated woman drinks champagne first thing in the morning and last thing at night.”
Emilia Sinisalo’s Varja walks on stage like a herald of doom, upright and gloomy. Her joy of life fades from moment to moment. A frustrated woman drinks champagne first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
At times, Varja quietly and indifferently nods to her mother’s young and handsome servant Jasha, and pulls him into the scenes.
Jasha, played by Heikki Ranta in a cheeky relaxed manner, takes all the pleasure out of life without remorse. He is a hedonist and pragmatist like no other.
Lauri Maijala has directed The Cherry Orchard to fill this largest stage in Finland.
The set design and costumes are magnificent. The scale of the wide stage emphasizes the family’s wasted wealth. They really can’t afford to maintain such a huge mansion!
It’s as if the modern age is running past this family stuck in the past on the racetrack.
Occasionally, however, there are things that don’t feel meaningful, but rather like decoration or gimmicks. Balls are raining plop plop plop, the swing is swaying, the lamps are falling.
The music composed by Lauri Porra for the play is shocking. A quartet of two violinists, a violist and a cellist, plays throughout the performance and occasionally gets the audience to applaud at intervals.
And one small but impressive detail of the sound design is worth mentioning: from time to time, a rough sound growls in the background of the stage. It’s as if the modern age is running past this family stuck in the past on the racetrack.
An acquaintance of mine said after the performance that he didn’t think the performance really found its genre, as if the director couldn’t decide whether to be funny or serious.
In my opinion, Maijala’s The Cherry Orchard is a work that has been seen and interpreted wisely and freshly – for example, compared to Maijala’s Three Sisters directed at the KOM Theatre, The Cherry Orchard is surprisingly faithful to Chekhov’s text. At times, when the narrative froze into static, I would have liked an even brisk shake-up of the original work.
In the second half, the changing scenery mixes the present and the future of the story in a harrowing way.
The family is just saying goodbye to the manor and its park, but the future has already arrived. Lopahin has already cut down the beloved cherry trees, the family farm has been bulldozed. The farm has a generic holiday village, terraced houses next to each other.
My nostalgic, pathetic soul hurts.
I leave the theatre feeling deeply exhausted. Partly because of the three-hour duration of the performance. A little pruning wouldn’t have hurt.
But more than that, I felt tired because of this endless, lovely, but destructive stupidity of our human species.
Chekhov is a master at revealing it.