FDS - The Cherry Orchard poster

The Cherry Orchard

A comedy by Anton Chekhov, Stephen Mulrine
Thursday 11 May 2006 - Saturday 13 May 2006
Faringdon Junior School, 26 Gloucester Street, Faringdon SN7 7HY
Directed by John Taylor

Performances start 7:30 pm. Doors open 30 minutes earlier.
Tickets: £7. Concessions £5.
Tickets were available from White Horse Country Wear, 6 Cornmarket, Faringdon.

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Chekhov (1860 – 1904) was not only a short-story writer and dramatist, but also a practising medical doctor and social reformer. This, his last play, was staged at the Moscow Arts Theatre in 1904.

The action takes place between May and October. Madame Ranevskaya returns to her estate in the Russian countryside from Paris. She has been living there with her lover following the deaths of her husband and young son (drowned on the estate) some years previously. Her money has run out and her lover has deserted her. She is accompanied by her daughter Anya, Anya’s governess Charlotta, and a manservant Yasha. She is welcomed by other members of the family and household, and by Lopakhin, a wealthy merchant descended from serfs who urges her to sell her cherry orchard to wipe out the family’s debts and to lease out the land and buildings so as to retain the family home. She refuses,  Lopakhin purchases the orchard at auction, and gives orders for it to be cut down as Madame R departs, virtually penniless, for Paris once again.

A bald and simple enough tale, but it is the playing out of the characters’ lives, loves, hopes, fears and disappointments that is so enthralling.

Find out more? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Orchard

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Photographs by Joan Lee

Cast (in order of appearance):

Dunyasha (a maid) - Karen Whiffen
Yermolai Lopakhin (a merchant) - Daniel Lander
Yepikhodov (the estate clerk) - Dominic Bullock
Firs (an old retainer aged 87) - Dave Headey
Servants - Tim Evans; Nick Evans
Anya (Ranevskaya’s 17-year-old daughter) - Laura Coleman
Lyubov Ranevskaya (a landowner) - Carolyn Taylor
Varya (Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter) - Sandra Keen
Leonid Gaev (Ranevskaya’s brother) - Peter Webster
Charlotta Ivanovna (a governess) - Katie Dyet
Simeonov-Pishchik (a landowner) - Jeff Barry
Yasha (a manservant) - Gary Field
Pyotr Trofimov (a student) - Adrian Wells
Tramp (stationmaster) - Alan Taylor

See programme for further details.

Production No.152 (3 shows were performed over 3 days)