Not as Chekov envisioned

Tuesday, February 3, 1998

Not as Chekov envisioned

THEATER Latest version of Russian’s masterpiece leaves audience
confused

By Michael Gillette

Daily Bruin Contributor

Up until the fourth act of the Artists’ Collective’s production
of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Gascon Theater in Culver City, one
simply bemoaned director Theresa Larkin’s decision to jettison the
wonderfully absurd comic tone of Anton Chekov’s final masterpiece
and opt instead for melodramatic "realism." When the play moves in
the fourth act from 19th century Russia to modern day Mill Valley,
Calif., however, the audience has plenty of other things to moan
about.

"The Cherry Orchard" is Chekhov’s last play and it deals with an
aging, financially troubled gentry family, headed by the matriarch
Lyubov (Sally Savalas), that loses its house and orchard. The drama
that has visited this family, Lyubov’s affair and the drowning of
her only son, lie in the past, years before the action of the play,
giving the work the weightless, languid feeling of a coda. Indeed
the packing and vacating the family does at the play’s end feels
very much like a farewell by Chekhov to a lifetime of literary
work.

At the heart of the drama, which Chekhov himself called a farce,
is the failure of Lyubov’s oldest daughter Varya (Adriane Alvarez)
and the merchant Yermolai (Kevin Skousen) to reach an agreement for
engagement. A confused Varya tells her sister in the first act that
for years people have been congratulating her on her match, but
that in fact nothing has been settled. This is because Lyubov and
her daughters are literary people and he is not. Indeed as the play
opens, he has fallen asleep while reading a book he couldn’t
understand. He is a former peasant and he is about business and
work. It is he who offers a solution to save the orchard and
estate, but his explanations only bring bafflement and wonder from
Lyubov.

This clash comes to a brilliant head in the Artists’ Collective
production’s sharpest scene, Yermolai’s proposal to Varya in the
arcadian garden where the second is staged. Yermolai, down on one
knee, quotes Shakespeare to the awaiting Varya, in his last effort
to fit in, bellowing, "Get thee to a nunnery Ophelia!", and
prompting her to run off in tears while he looks around in his
illiterate confusion.

In this scene the players connect with the absurdity Chekhov has
planted in his central premise. For most of the show, however, they
play their scenes in a stultifyingly earnest way, uttering lines
feelingly in inconsistent Russian accents and then pausing at
length to show that they understand one another.

This, however, is until act four, or rather, until the dismal
ballet scene at the end of act three that introduces the idea of
"passing time." In act four the actors appear in modern dress, each
having adopted a stereotypical "modern American" speaking style,
that is generally three times as slick and self-conscious as the
one they employed before. The overall effect is astounding, and
comparable, one would imagine, to listening to an orchestra in
which musicians played another’s part while out of tune.

The idea behind such a choice, one assumes, is to make Chekhov
"relevant" to the audience. To this all one can say is Chekhov does
not go out of style.

All that the "twist" accomplishes is to scramble what little
thread of the story the production had grasped. In the play’s first
part, the actors, using accents, strain not to play "types," which
is what Chekhov has written, and instead to play "people." In the
second part they seem to abandon trying to play people and instead
spend their energy playing "Americans," which means in this case
actors you’d recognize from television. These Americans happen to
clash from top to bottom with the characters Chekhov created
leaving the audience confused when they should be moved, or maybe
laughing.

A few performances deserve note in the show. Despite being cast
in a part that calls for an actor twice his age, Justin Eick makes
a great showing as Leonid. He easily brings off the accent that
leaves his castmates flailing and play the part with just the
right, silly tone.

Also, Ed Matz as Pyotr the aging student achieves the blend of
dignity and ridiculousness that the part calls for.

THEATER: "The Cherry Orchard" plays at the Gascon Center
Theater, 8737 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Tickets are $12, $10
for students and seniors. For more information, call (888)
566-8499.