Reviews
More links to review pages and their reviews by category will eventually be up here. For now, check out the “featured” reviews on the main page below.
Featured Theatre Review: (6.18.07)
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Directed by Libby Appel at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
3BR (Three Bullet Review)
- Great adaptation and focused direction for a “festival” audience.
- Classical technical designs felt authentic and appropriate for the play.
- Though at times a bit too Shakespearean, the performances carried the intentions of the text with ease, keeping in mind the first bullet above.
The Full Review
We took our annual Ashland, Orgeon trip this year to see some good old fashioned repertory theatre. Though Lia came along for the first time and made it all the better, we were able to see two plays each by switching off and stealing away while she wasn’t looking. My first show was The Cherry Orchard and even if Lia wasn’t with us I’m sure Jen wouldn’t have come along. Chekhov just bores her to death I think and really it is the perfect kind of thing for me so I was ready to sit and watch people talk for 3 plus hours with very little to show for it on the action side of things. At least in Shakespeare people die on a regular basis.
Anyway, by-in-large the play was very well done. It was directed (in her final year at OSF) by the Artistic Director who apparently has a thing for Chekhov. Something about her first viewing of this play made her want to be in Theatre for the rest of her life or some such nonsense. Anyway, it did show. She knew the material quite well and the execution was near flawless for a “festival” audience (which brings me to a description of what I meant in the above bullet). Libby knows how to run a festival theatre company, no doubt. However, with that successful management and direction comes a bit of mediocrity by design. This is one of the, if not the, most successful Shakespeare Reps on the west coast and they didn’t get there by being edgy. They do produce some new plays, and they ride the edge a bit, but we are never talking “Off-Broadway” stuff here. They have a very loyal and common subscriber base and they really shouldn’t mess with that goodness. So I really don’t fault that aspect of the theatre when it bleeds into the shows. They are asking your fairly typical R&J crowds to watch Chekhov, so you are going to have to make some creative allowances for that to work out without a lot of snoring.
So all that comes down to the fact that because of their category of theatre Libby had to adapt and focus the production with this particular audience in mind. And it showed. The performances were overcharged with energy and a bit too bombastic and “Shakespearean” for my taste. Sometimes you really just wanted them to calm down and just talk and not act. I told Jen when I got out that I loved it, but over time I think the splendor of seeing professional theatre wore off a bit and I was, as usual, able to gain some perspective. Though most every one of Chekhov’s intension were probably heard and understood by a good portion of the audience that wasn’t asleep by intermission, the beauty of his subtext was pretty much lost I think. If there is one thing he is great at, maybe the best next to Shaw, it is deeeep subtext and symbolism in even the simplest dialog. I mean, you are sitting there watching people talk about lots of fairly boring stuff for a looong time, but if you are able to be engaged enough to really listen beyond the actual logic of the dialogue you can really find that wisdom that is hidden within. Like Shaw, O’Neill, Miller, no matter how bad the production is (and this one was not one of those bad ones but it wasn’t perfect either) the script can really carry the play regardless. So coming out of this play it was just a further reminded to me how much I can be blown away by the plight of one family losing their estate and infamous cherry orchard while at the same time nearly weeping at the cross-symbolism of that plight and how it related to Chekhov’s own transforming time. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been so drawn to Eastern European themes.
So though the presentation of the play was “dumbed down” for the obvious audience, the themes were basically intact and by the time the curtain went down I was in tears. It wasn’t because someone died (even though someone does but that isn’t the point), it wasn’t because someone lost their one true love, it wasn’t because a child was lost in a well. It was only because, as a family leaves their home forever, there is the unmistakable resonance of the changing landscape of an entire nation of people as it is reflected in the sounds of a cherry orchard being slowly chopped down in the distance.
So in the end Libby did a good job…but Anton, once again, did a better one.
