The Cherry Orchard

Ranevskaya comes home to a cherry orchard already in the auctioneer’s book. Chekhov called it a comedy; Stanislavski staged a tragedy; the play still holds both. Adelphi ebook. An aristocratic estate, a merchant who will cut the trees, servants, daughters, a future that will not wait for feeling. Subtlety, farce, the axe in the distance. Russian theatre’s most famous garden, and a class that cannot quite hear the price. The orchard as memory, mortgage, and a joke that hurts.