The history of the production of the play "Cherry Orchard". The Cherry Orchard. Test based on the play "The Cherry Orchard"

Konstantin Stanislavsky as Gaev. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year

Leonid Leonidov as Lopakhin. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914

Alexander Artyom as Firs. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914

Vasily Katchalov as Petit Trofimov and Maria Lilina as Ani. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater, Act II. 1904 year © Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914

Firs: "They left ... They forgot about me." Staging of The Cherry Orchard at the Moscow Art Theater, Act IV. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914

Cotillion. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater, Act III. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914

In this very first production of The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov did not like a lot. The author's discrepancies with Konstantin Stanislavsky, who staged a play written specifically for the Moscow Art Theater, concerned the distribution of roles between the performers, mood and genre (Stanislavsky was convinced that he was staging a tragedy), even the staging means reflecting the naturalistic aesthetics of the early Moscow Art Theater. “I will write a new play, and it will begin like this: 'How wonderful, how quiet! There are no birds, no dogs, no cuckoos, no owls, no nightingales, no clocks, no bells and not a single cricket, "" Stanislavsky quoted Chekhov's snide joke about the sound score that recreates the life of the estate. Today not a single Chekhov biography or history of the Moscow Art Theater bypasses this conflict between the writer and the theater. But the oppressive atmosphere, streams of tears and everything that frightened Chekhov is at odds with the few surviving fragments of later versions of The Cherry Orchard, a play that remained in the theater's repertoire until the second half of the 1930s and was constantly changing, including thanks to the very Stanislavsky. For example, with a short final scene with Firs recorded on film: the voice of a footman performed by Mikhail Tarkhanov sounds in it - despite the situation of a forgotten servant in the house, how hard every movement is given to this decrepit old man, in spite of everything - suddenly unusually young. Just now, Ranevskaya, sobbing, said goodbye to her youth on stage, and she miraculously returned to Firs in these very last minutes.

1954 year. "Company Renault - Barrot", Paris. Director - Jean Louis Barrot

Scene from Jean-Louis Barrot's production of The Cherry Orchard. Paris, 1954© Manuel Litran / Paris Match Archive / Getty Images

Outstanding European productions of The Cherry Orchard began to appear only after the war. Theater historians explain this by the extremely strong impression of Western directors from the Moscow Art Theater performance, which has taken Chekhov's play on tour more than once. The Cherry Orchard staged by Jean Louis Barrot did not become a breakthrough, but it is a very interesting example of how the European theater, in search of its Chekhov, was slowly getting out of the influence of the Moscow Art Theater. From the director Barrot, who in these years discovered for himself and the audience his theater Camus and Kafka, who continued to stage his main author, Claudel, one could expect Chekhov to be read through the prism of the latest theater. But there is nothing of this in Barro's Cherry Orchard: listening to the surviving recording of his radio broadcast, you remember about absurdism only when Gaev, in response to Lopakhin's business proposal about arranging dachas on the site of the estate, is outraged: "Absurde!" The Cherry Orchard staged by the Renault Barrot Company is primarily (and strictly according to Chekhov) a comedy, in which a huge place was given to music. Pierre Boulez, with whom the theater collaborated during these years, was responsible for her in the play. The role of Ranevskaya was played by Barrot's wife, the co-founder of the theater, who earned her fame as a comic actress "Comedie Francaise", Madeleine Reno. And Barro himself unexpectedly chose the role of Petya Trofimov: perhaps the great mime was close to the hero who deciphered the character of the merchant Lopakhin by his hands - "gentle fingers, like an artist."

1974 year. Teatro Piccolo, Milan. Director - Giorgio Strehler

Rehearsal of the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Giorgio Strehler. Milan, 1974© Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images

Tino Carraro directed by Giorgio Strehler "The Cherry Orchard"

Tino Carraro and Enzo Tarasho, directed by Giorgio Strehler "The Cherry Orchard"© Mario De Biasi / Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images

“Craig wants the set to be as fluid as the music and help to perfect certain places in the play, just as with music it is possible to follow and emphasize the turns of the action. He wants the scenery to change with the play, "wrote artist Rene Pio in 1910 after meeting with the English director and set designer Gordon Craig. Luciano Damiani's set in The Cherry Orchard directed by Giorgio Strehler, thanks to its striking simplicity, has become perhaps the best example of this way of working with space in modern theater. Above the snow-white stage, a wide, in the entire depth of the stage, a translucent curtain was stretched, which at different moments quietly swayed over the heroes, then dangerously low over them, then sprinkled them with dry leaves. The scenery turned into a partner for the actors, and they themselves were reflected in their own way in very few objects on the stage, like children's toys taken from a century-old closet. The plastic score of Ranevskaya, played by the actress Valentina Cortese for Strehler, was based on rotation, and the top launched by Gayev rhymed with this movement, spinning for a minute and then suddenly flying off its axis.

1981 year. Theater "Buff-du-Nord", Paris. Director - Peter Brook

"The Cherry Orchard" by Peter Brook at the "Buff du Nord" theater. 1981 year© Nicolas Treatt / archivesnicolastreatt.net

In his lectures on the history of literature, Naum Berkovsky called the subtext the language of enemies, and connected its appearance in the drama with the changing relationships of people at the beginning of the 19th century. In The Cherry Orchard by Peter Brook, the characters have no enemies among each other. Nor did the director have them in the play. And the subtext in Chekhov's work suddenly radically changed its quality, ceased to be a method of concealment, but, on the contrary, turned into a means of revealing to each other that which cannot be conveyed with the help of words. Played with little or no decorations (the walls and floors of the old Parisian theater "Buff-du-Nord" were covered with carpets), this performance was closely connected with post-war literature: “Chekhov writes extremely succinctly, using a minimum of words, and his writing style resembles Pinter or Beckett - said Brooke in an interview. "For Chekhov, like them, composition, rhythm, purely theatrical poetry of the only exact word, pronounced then and in the right way, plays a role." Among the countless, still emerging interpretations of The Cherry Orchard as a drama of absurdity, perhaps the most unusual thing about Brook's performance was precisely the fact that, read through Beckett and Pinter, Chekhov sounded in a new way, but remained himself.

2003 year. Stanislavsky International Foundation and Meno Fortas Theater, Vilnius. Director - Eimuntas Nyakrosius

The play "The Cherry Orchard" by Eimuntas Nyakrosius. Festival "Golden Mask". Moscow, 2004

Evgeny Mironov as Lopakhin in the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Eimuntas Nyakrosius. Festival "Golden Mask". Moscow, 2004 © Dmitry Korobeynikov / RIA Novosti

The first thing that the audience saw on the stage was the garments of the inhabitants of the house thrown on top of each other, standing behind low columns, two hoops coming from nowhere: a seemingly manor house, but as if reassembled from almost random objects. In this "Cherry Orchard" there were references to Strehler, but there was not even a trace of the poetry of the Italian Chekhovian performance. However, the performance of Nyakrosius itself was built rather according to the laws of a poetic text. The six hours he walked, connections between things, gestures (as always in Nyakrosius, an unusually rich plastic score), sounds (like the unbearably loud cry of swallows) and music, unexpected animal parallels of heroes - these connections multiplied at an extraordinary speed, permeating all levels ... "A gloomy and splendid mass," wrote the theater expert Pavel Markov about Meyerhold's "The Inspector General", and this is exactly what the impression of the Lithuanian director's performance staged together with Moscow artists for the centenary of Chekhov
plays.

Shot from the movie "Garden" (2008)

The estate of the landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. Spring, cherry trees are blooming. But the beautiful garden must soon be sold for debt. For the past five years, Ranevskaya and her seventeen-year-old daughter Anya have lived abroad. Ranevskaya's brother Leonid Andreevich Gaev and her adopted daughter, twenty-four-year-old Varya, remained on the estate. Ranevskaya's business is bad, there are almost no funds left. Lyubov Andreevna has always littered with money. Her husband died of drunkenness six years ago. Ranevskaya fell in love with another person, got along with him. But soon her little son Grisha died tragically by drowning in the river. Lyubov Andreevna, unable to bear the grief, fled abroad. The lover followed her. When he fell ill, Ranevskaya had to settle him at her dacha near Menton and take care of him for three years. And then, when he had to sell the dacha for debts and move to Paris, he robbed and left Ranevskaya.

Gaev and Varya meet Lyubov Andreevna and Anya at the station. At home, the maid Dunyasha and the familiar merchant Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin are waiting for them. Lopakhin's father was a serf of the Ranevskys, he himself became rich, but says about himself that he remained a "peasant peasant". The clerk Epikhodov, a man with whom something constantly happens and who was nicknamed "twenty-two misfortunes", comes.

At last the carriages arrive. The house is filled with people, everyone is in pleasant excitement. Everyone talks about their own. Lyubov Andreevna looks at the rooms and through tears of joy recalls the past. The maid Dunyasha can't wait to tell the young lady that Epikhodov proposed to her. Anya herself advises Varya to marry Lopakhin, and Varya dreams of marrying Anya off as a rich man. The governess Charlotte Ivanovna, a strange and eccentric person, boasts about her amazing dog, the neighbor landowner Simeonov-Pischik asks for a loan. He hears almost nothing, and the old faithful servant Firs mutters all the time.

Lopakhin reminds Ranevskaya that the estate should soon be sold at auction, the only way out is to split the land into plots and lease them to summer residents. Ranevskaya Lopakhin's proposal surprises: how can you cut down her favorite wonderful cherry orchard! Lopakhin wants to stay longer with Ranevskaya, whom he loves "more than his own," but it's time for him to leave. Gayev addresses a hundred-year-old "respected" wardrobe with a welcoming speech, but then, embarrassed, he again begins to uselessly utter his favorite billiard words.

Ranevskaya does not immediately recognize Petya Trofimov: this is how he changed, grew ugly, the "sweet student" turned into an "eternal student." Lyubov Andreevna cries, remembering her little drowned son Grisha, whose teacher was Trofimov.

Gayev, left alone with Varya, tries to talk about business. There is a rich aunt in Yaroslavl, who, however, does not like them: after all, Lyubov Andreevna did not marry a nobleman, and she did not behave "very virtuous". Gayev loves his sister, but still calls her "vicious", which annoys Ani. Gaev continues to build projects: his sister will ask Lopakhin for money, Anya will go to Yaroslavl - in a word, they will not allow the estate to be sold, Gaev even swears about it. Grumpy Firs finally takes the master, like a child, to sleep. Anya is calm and happy: her uncle will arrange everything.

Lopakhin never ceases to persuade Ranevskaya and Gaev to accept his plan. The three of them had breakfast in the city and, returning, stopped in a field near the chapel. Just here, on the same bench, Epikhodov tried to explain himself to Dunyasha, but she already preferred the young cynical lackey Yasha to him. Ranevskaya and Gaev do not seem to hear Lopakhin and talk about completely different things. Without convincing the "frivolous, non-business, strange" people of anything, Lopakhin wants to leave. Ranevskaya asks him to stay: with him "still more fun."

Anya, Varya and Petya Trofimov arrive. Ranevskaya starts a conversation about a “proud person”. According to Trofimov, there is no point in pride: a rude, unhappy person needs not to admire himself, but to work. Petya condemns the intelligentsia that is incapable of work, those people who philosophize importantly, but treat men like animals. Lopakhin enters the conversation: he just works "from morning to evening", dealing with large capitals, but he is more and more convinced that there are few decent people around. Lopakhin does not finish, Ranevskaya interrupts him. In general, everyone here does not want and do not know how to listen to each other. There is a silence in which the distant sad sound of a broken string is heard.

Soon, everyone disperses. Left alone, Anya and Trofimov are happy to have the opportunity to talk together, without Varya. Trofimov convinces Anya that she must be “above love”, that the main thing is freedom: “all Russia is our garden”, but in order to live in the present, one must first redeem the past by suffering and labor. Happiness is close: if not they, then others will definitely see it.

The twenty-second of August arrives, the trading day. It was on this evening, quite inappropriately, that a ball was being organized in the estate, and a Jewish orchestra was invited. Once upon a time, generals and barons danced here, but now, as Firs laments, both the postal official and the station chief "are not going hunting." Guests are entertained with her tricks by Charlotte Ivanovna. Ranevskaya is anxiously awaiting her brother's return. Yaroslavl's aunt still sent fifteen thousand, but they are not enough to redeem the estate.

Petya Trofimov "calms" Ranevskaya: it's not about the garden, it's over for a long time, you need to face the truth. Lyubov Andreevna asks not to condemn her, to regret: after all, without the cherry orchard, her life loses its meaning. Every day Ranevskaya receives telegrams from Paris. The first time she tore them at once, then - having read them first, now she no longer tears. “This wild man,” whom she still loves, begs her to come. Petya condemns Ranevskaya for her love of "a petty scoundrel, nothingness." Angry Ranevskaya, unable to restrain herself, takes revenge on Trofimov, calling him a "funny eccentric", "freak", "neat": "You must love yourself ... you must fall in love!" Petya, in horror, tries to leave, but then stays, dances with Ranevskaya, who asked him for forgiveness.

Finally, a confused, joyful Lopakhin and a tired Gayev appear, who, without telling anything, immediately goes to his room. The cherry orchard was sold, and Lopakhin bought it. The "new landowner" is happy: he managed to surpass the rich man Deriganov at the auction, giving ninety thousand in excess of the debt. Lopakhin picks up the keys thrown on the floor by the proud Varya. Let the music play, let everyone see how Yermolai Lopakhin “enough with an ax in the cherry orchard”!

Anya consoles her crying mother: the garden is sold, but there is a whole life ahead. There will be a new garden, more luxurious than this, they will have a "quiet deep joy" ...

The house is empty. Its inhabitants, having said goodbye to each other, leave. Lopakhin is going to Kharkov for the winter, Trofimov is returning to Moscow, to the university. Lopakhin and Petya exchange barbs. Although Trofimov calls Lopakhin a "predatory beast" necessary "in the sense of metabolism", he still loves in him "a gentle, subtle soul." Lopakhin offers Trofimov money for the trip. He refuses: over the "free man", "in the forefront of going" to "the highest happiness", no one should have power.

Ranevskaya and Gaev even cheered up after the sale of the cherry orchard. They used to worry and suffer, but now they have calmed down. Ranevskaya is going to live in Paris on the money sent by her aunt. Anya is inspired: a new life is beginning - she will graduate from high school, work, read books, a "new wonderful world" will open before her. Suddenly, a breathless Simeonov-Pischik appears and instead of asking for money, on the contrary, distributes debts. It turned out that the British had found white clay on his land.

Everyone settled down differently. Gaev says that he is now a banking campaigner. Lopakhin promises to find a new place for Charlotte, Varya got a job as a housekeeper for the Ragulins, Epikhodov, hired by Lopakhin, remains on the estate, Firs should be sent to the hospital. But still Gaev sadly says: "Everyone is abandoning us ... we suddenly became unnecessary."

An explanation must finally occur between Varya and Lopakhin. For a long time Varya has been teased by "Madame Lopakhin". Vara likes Ermolai Alekseevich, but she herself cannot make an offer. Lopakhin, who also speaks very well of Vara, agrees to "end it at once" with this case. But when Ranevskaya arranges for them to meet, Lopakhin, without making up his mind, leaves Varya, using the very first pretext.

“It's time to go! On the road! " - with these words they leave the house, locking all the doors. All that remains is the old Firs, whom, it would seem, everyone took care of, but whom they forgot to send to the hospital. Firs, sighing that Leonid Andreevich went in an overcoat, and not in a fur coat, lies down to rest and lies motionless. The same sound of a broken string is heard. "Silence sets in, and you can only hear how far away in the garden they are knocking on a tree with an ax."

Retold

The Cherry Orchard is the pinnacle of Russian drama at the beginning of the 20th century, a lyrical comedy, a play that marked the beginning of a new era in the development of Russian theater.

The main theme of the play is autobiographical - a bankrupt noble family sells their family estate at an auction. The author, as a person who has gone through a similar life situation, describes with subtle psychologism the state of mind of people who are soon forced to leave their home. The novelty of the play is the lack of division of heroes into positive and negative, major and minor. They all fall into three categories:

people of the past - noble aristocrats (Ranevskaya, Gaev and their lackey Firs);
people of the present - their bright representative, the merchant-entrepreneur Lopakhin;
people of the future are the progressive youth of that time (Peter Trofimov and Anya).

History of creation

Chekhov began work on the play in 1901. Due to serious health problems, the writing process was rather difficult, but nevertheless, in 1903 the work was completed. The first theatrical production of the play took place a year later on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, becoming the pinnacle of Chekhov's work as a playwright and a textbook classic of the theatrical repertoire.

Analysis of the piece

Description of the work

The action takes place in the family estate of the landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, who returned from France with her young daughter Anya. At the railway station they are met by Gaev (Ranevskaya's brother) and Varya (her adopted daughter).

The financial situation of the Ranevsky family is approaching complete collapse. The entrepreneur Lopakhin offers his version of the solution to the problem - to divide the land plot into shares and give them for use to summer residents for a certain fee. The lady is burdened by this offer, because for this she will have to say goodbye to her beloved cherry orchard, with which many warm memories of her youth are associated. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that her beloved son Grisha died in this garden. Gayev, imbued with the feelings of his sister, reassures her with a promise that their family estate will not be put up for sale.

The action of the second part takes place on the street, in the yard of the estate. Lopakhin, with his characteristic pragmatism, continues to insist on his plan to save the estate, but no one pays attention to him. Everyone switches to the appeared teacher Peter Trofimov. He delivers an excited speech on the fate of Russia, its future and touches on the topic of happiness in a philosophical context. The materialist Lopakhin is skeptical about the young teacher, and it turns out that only Anya is capable of imbuing with his lofty ideas.

The third action begins with the fact that Ranevskaya invites the orchestra with her last money and arranges a dance evening. At the same time, Gaev and Lopakhin are absent - they left for the city for the auction, where the Ranevsky estate should go under the hammer. After anxious waiting, Lyubov Andreevna learns that her estate was bought at auction by Lopakhin, who does not hide the joy of his acquisition. The Ranevsky family is in despair.

The final is entirely devoted to the departure of the Ranevsky family from their home. The scene of parting is shown with all the deep psychologism inherent in Chekhov. The play ends with a remarkably deep monologue by Firs, which the owners in a hurry forgot in the estate. The final chord is the sound of an ax. The cherry orchard is being cut.

main characters

Sentimental person, owner of the estate. Having lived for several years abroad, she is accustomed to a luxurious life and, by inertia, continues to allow herself much that, given the deplorable state of her finances, according to the logic of common sense, should be inaccessible to her. Being a frivolous person, very helpless in everyday matters, Ranevskaya does not want to change anything in herself, while she is fully aware of her weaknesses and shortcomings.

A successful merchant, he owes a lot to the Ranevsky family. His image is ambiguous - it combines diligence, prudence, enterprise and rudeness, "peasant" principle. In the finale of the play, Lopakhin does not share Ranevskaya's feelings, he is happy that, despite his peasant origin, he was able to afford to buy the estate of his late father's owners.

Like his sister, he is very sensitive and sentimental. Being an idealist and romantic, to console Ranevskaya, he comes up with fantastic plans for saving the family estate. He is emotional, verbose, but at the same time completely inactive.

Petya Trofimov

An eternal student, a nihilist, an eloquent representative of the Russian intelligentsia, who advocated the development of Russia only in words. In pursuit of the "higher truth", he denies love, considering it a shallow and ghostly feeling, which immensely grieves Ranevskaya's daughter Anya, who is in love with him.

Romantic 17-year-old young lady, who fell under the influence of populist Peter Trofimov. Recklessly believing in a better life after the sale of her parental estate, Anya is ready for any difficulties for the sake of joint happiness next to her lover.

87-year-old man, a footman in the house of Ranevsky. A type of servant of the old times, he surrounds his masters with paternal care. He remained to serve his masters even after the abolition of serfdom.

A young lackey, with contempt for Russia, dreaming of going abroad. A cynical and cruel man, rude to old Firs, disrespectful even to his own mother.

The structure of the work

The structure of the piece is quite simple - 4 acts without dividing into separate scenes. The duration is several months, from late spring to mid-autumn. In the first action, exposure and complication take place, in the second - an increase in tension, in the third - the climax (sale of the estate), in the fourth - the denouement. A characteristic feature of the play is the lack of a genuine external conflict, dynamism, unpredictable plot twists. The author's remarks, monologues, pauses and some understatement give the play a unique atmosphere of exquisite lyricism. The artistic realism of the play is achieved through the alternation of dramatic and comic scenes.

(Scene from a modern production)

The play is dominated by the development of the emotional and psychological plan, the main driver of the action is the inner experiences of the characters. The author expands the artistic space of the work by introducing a large number of characters who will never appear on the stage. The effect of expanding the spatial boundaries is also given by the symmetrically arising theme of France, which gives the arched form to the play.

Final conclusion

Chekhov's last play, one might say, is his “swan song”. The novelty of her dramatic language is a direct expression of Chekhov's special concept of life, which is characterized by an extraordinary attention to small, seemingly insignificant details, focusing on the inner experiences of the characters.

In the play "The Cherry Orchard", the author captured the state of critical disunity in Russian society of his time; this sad factor is often present in scenes where the characters hear only themselves, creating only the appearance of interaction.

Acute disputes about the "Cherry Orchard" genre, disagreements between the author and the theater arose already during the preparation period the first performance at the Moscow Art Theater... The theater's perception of the play alerted the author - as can be seen from the correspondence with O.L. Knipper, who noted, among other things, that Stanislavsky "completely roared" over the play. Stanislavsky, as follows from his letter to Chekhov dated October 22, 1903, insisted that "this is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, this is a tragedy ...". Chekhov did not like the rehearsals he attended in December 1903. Not only the genre shift of the play towards the “heavy drama of Russian life”, but also the unbearable lengths annoy Chekhov. Nemirovich-Danchenko in his memoirs about the first production of "The Cherry Orchard", which took place January 17, 1904, admitted that there was a "misunderstanding of Chekhov" - the delicate fabric of the work "the theater took with too rough hands."

The author's dissatisfaction and his own dissatisfaction forced the theater to continue working on the play. According to Nemirovich, over time, the performance got rid of precisely those shortcomings that Chekhov pointed out, but nevertheless, a complete transfer of the "author's worldview" did not happen. The growing success of the performance was evidenced by press reviews of the tour in St. Petersburg, as well as the growing popularity of the play among the provincial theater.

In 1928 g. Moscow Art Theaterresumed "The Cherry Orchard", wanting to prove that Chekhov is close to a new time. In accordance with the requirements of the moment, the satirical features in the image of Gaev were strengthened, but the desire to saturate the performance with historical optimism - evidence of this intention is the well-known lines from “My Life in Art”, where Stanislavsky wants to give Lopakhin “the scope of Chaliapin”, and Anya - “temperament Yermolova ”and shout to the whole world“ Hello, new life! ” - had no practical implementation. Meanwhile, the Mkhatov tradition of the elegiac performance of The Cherry Orchard has strengthened quite firmly, and therefore could not fail to cause denial at the height of Chekhov's “sociological reappraisal” in the thirties.

A sharp controversy with the Chekhovian canon of the Moscow Art Theater was the production of The Cherry Orchard by A.M. Lobanov at the Studio Theater under the leadership of R.N. Simonov in 1934. The director said: "I am for Chekhov, but against the Moscow Art Theater." Lobanov did not see any fundamental difference between the characters of the play: everyone was equally absorbed by the vaudeville bourgeois environment, Trofimov in the play forced to recall Gorky's description of the “trashy student” who “speaks redly”: he recited in the bathhouse in front of the gymnasium students (this was the interpretation of the line “Sex talk about decadent! ”). Anya, first of all, according to Chekhov, the "child" turned into a girl who "condemned her mother and rather evil gossip about her", the "attraction of the aging Ranevskaya to the young lackey" was emphasized (Yasha turned out to be Ranevskaya's lover, sang chansonnets and danced the cancan) ... And Firs was dying "doing some kind of difficult physical exercise." The play, as one would expect, caused a stormy controversy - the critic Y. Yuzovsky spoke in defense of the director, but he also recognized the influence of vulgar sociological concepts on the director.

The theme of the death of culture was seen in the play by A. Efros in a vivid interpretation of the play staged at the Taganka Theater in 1975. In the scenography of V.Ya. Leventhal this reading was expressed in the transfer of action to the cemetery. Everyone in the performance yearned for beauty, and especially the unusual Lopakhin - V.S. Vysotsky, but they could not fully comprehend it and save it. The actor seemed to remind the viewer of Chekhov’s words about an intelligent person, about Lopakhin’s “thin as an artist’s” fingers, who painfully wants to join the inaccessible world of culture and cannot. Words at the end of Act III “Who Bought?” - “I bought” at the play sounded like: “Who killed?” - "I killed". In his "drunken dance" Lopakhin - Vysotsky sought to drown the feeling of completely unconscious guilt.

Unusual for Satire Theater, elegance was the "Cherry Orchard" V.N. Plucheka (1984) with unconventional, enlightened images of Gaev (A.D. Papanov) and Lopakhin (A.A. Mironov). The garden in the play bifurcated - the ugly cherry trees fell to Lopakhin, but an elusive ghost garden, a memory garden, a dream garden appeared over the stage in the play of light. Such readings were undoubtedly influenced by the emerging research on the semantics of the image of the garden in Chekhov. Tragic tonality prevailed in the production of I.V. Ilyinsky on the stage of the Maly Theater (1982). The performances of G.B. Volchek at the Sovremennik Theater (1976 and 1997) varied in tone - the latter raised the tone of the play, made Chekhov “energetic”. Ranevskaya M.M. became broken, nervous, suddenly passing from laughter to tears in the new production. Nelovoy.

In the post-war foreign theater "The Cherry Orchard" becomes one of Chekhov's most popular plays. Following Pitoyev in France, Chekhov’s director is Jean-Louis Barrot, who directed the Cherry Orchard, at the theater "Odeon" translated by Jacques Neve in 1954. It was from this performance that the tradition of perceiving the play as a parable about the relationship between man and time began. The director said about his “motto”: “About a person. Through a person. In the name of man. " The performance became an event in the cultural life of France not only thanks to the wonderful performance of Madeleine Renault - Ranevskaya and other performers, but also thanks to a serious philosophical approach to the Russian author, who discarded abstract cliché notions about "Slavic anguish" and "Russian soul".

However, the most famous groundbreaking interpretation of the play in modern Western theater is Giorgio Strehler's production at the Piccolo di Milano Theater... The director concludes that the time has come to present The Cherry Orchard "more versatile, more symbolic, more open to fantasy." Strehler put forward an original concept for the play, calling it the "three-box problem." Three caskets, nested one in the other, reflect the relationship of the three temporal dimensions of the play: real time - the life of Ranevskaya and Gaev, historical time, where events are seen from the outside, and philosophical time. The third box - the box of Life gives the action a generalized symbolic sound. In Strehler's performance, the main character was the Cherry Orchard, decided conventionally and metaphorically, in the form of a dome hovering above the stage (the performance was designed by Josef Svoboda). The semantics of white has since been of great interest to the direction of the Chekhov theater. The life plan of the production was emphasized by separate mise-en-scenes and objects-symbols. So, Ranevskaya, according to Strehler, returns not just home, but into childhood - children's toys were thrown out of the "respected closets" here.

The theme of the loss of culture, seen in the loss of the cherry orchard, came to the fore in another famous play - directed by Peter Brook in the Theater "Bouffe du Nord" in Paris in 1980 Narrative, philosophical, lasting every minute of the stage life was Peter Stein's "Cherry Orchard", shown in Moscow in 1991... Critics noted that for the director “nobody died. Everyone is alive - Chekhov, Stanislavsky, and the centenary Firs. "

Why did the fresh "Cherry Orchard" directed by the famous director angered me?
The reason is simple: text! The text spoken by the stars of Lenkom is not Chekhov. This is Chekhov in a mediocre translation (retelling, presentation of a troechnik). This is Chekhov, heavily diluted by Mark Zakharov. And a kind viewer, eager to look at the living Bronevoy (Zbruev, Shagin's "dandy", Olesya Zheleznyak), a viewer who has not read the original source or does not remember the play well from school, might think that Anton Pavlovich is the author of bad dialogues and vague plot lines.
Not only is the piece greatly shortened, after all, you can leave a glass from the bottle of wine, but it will be a full glass of wine - with all the nuances, notes and aromas. And you can dilute wine - whether with water, alcohol, donkey urine, it's a matter of taste. And there will be nothing left of the wine but the label. This is exactly what happened in Lenkom with the Cherry Orchard.
A play "better than none in the world", a play-poem where every remark is important, every word is hopelessly corrupted by false zacharisms.
Well, I would like you, Mr. Director, to speak out on some topical issue and send a signal to society, well, write your own original text. Or order Dmitry Bykov. But why so brazenly tear someone else's artistic fabric? From helplessness? From impunity? From a sick big mind? From cynicism?
If Chekhov has long been dead and cannot bang on the head, as Edward Radzinsky would have done in such a case, this is not a reason to violate his copyrights. You can not write on the poster of this disgrace: Chekhov. Write: Mark Zakharov based on the play by Chekhov. How good it is for Brecht (the last example with the production of The Three Penny Opera by Kirill Serebennikov Serebrennikov), that the heirs keep track of the integrity of his texts! Not a word, not a note! .. Do not touch! ..
Sorry for the actors. They carry some kind of snowstorm, nonsense and nonsense instead of Chekhov's music, it is not clear why they repeat the same remarks. The feeling that all the actors after the New Year’s meeting, from a big hangover, did not learn or forget the text and say “in their own words”, missing whole fragments.
You can’t retell the poem in your own words! It is impossible!
After this premiere, I regretted for the first time that Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was no longer in our power.
And one more simple consideration: Mark Zakharov will die, we are all mortal, and someone clever who will be appointed to replace him will suddenly want to restore old Zakharov's performances, say, "Three Girls in Blue" or "Memorial Prayer", and will bring there are many, many directorial gag. Decides that it will be more relevant, sharper. And he will say that this surrogate is the real Zakharov. Interestingly, Mark Zakharovich will not be in a coffin in that case?