Set in Thatcherite Wales on the Bloumfield estate, Gary Owen’s adaptation of Chekhov’s classic play surveys the decline of the British aristocracy. With an auction on the property looming, the political and personal divides within the family are exposed. Anthony Skuses’s direction positions the audience to view the estate in a sentimental light while simultaneously questioning its history.
The set captures a house stuck in time. The living room, full of pastel fabric furniture and old coffee table books, looks like a heritage display. The space is not bright but refined. Large lamps are used to create ambient light during the day and are switched off to create a sense of stagnation in the evenings; it’s easy to see the dust on the floor.
Many of the characters represent class based archetypes such as the socialist teacher or the up and coming businessman. Uncle Gabriel (Charles Mayer) is a charming but delusional gentleman whose solution to every problem is that “something will come up.” Often wearing a smoking jacket and fawning over hand made pre-industrial furniture, Mayer masterfully displays the classic lost aristocrat, a well educated man who knows nothing.
The matriarch of the family, Rainey (Deborah Galanos) juxtaposes Mayer’s humorous dilution with something more sinister. She is very aware of her own mental decline and alcoholism, even going so far as to predict an intervention , but still refuses to live in the present. She frames the fight over the household in generational terms, describing Lewis (Dorje Swallow), who suggests renovations, as a “son of a ditch cleaner” and argues he wants to demolish the orchid out of vengeance rather than to save the house.
Galanos was initially unlikable, perhaps intentionally, but began opening up and by the end balanced a confident arrogance that was entertaining with an acute sense of loss. Quintessentially cliche jokes around drinking work because her presence is so striking.
The most interesting aspect of the production was how competing ideologies informed the interpersonal relationships on stage. The Marxist tutor Ceri (James Smithers) has a passionate argument with the oldest daughter Anya (Amelia Parsonson) about art. They cannot agree if art that needs to be explained is classist or not, but for her, his radicalism is a “summer fling.”; a chance to be free from the coldness of the house and its dying order.
The adopted daughter Valeire (Jane Angharad) has a similar experience with her partner Lewis. She feels safe that he has a plan for the estate’s future but grows notably uncomfortable when he asks her to cut down a Cherry tree with him. Swallow’s performance exudes pleasure as he describes cutting into the old wood. The audience is left questioning if the mother was right all along.
Ironically, the most apolitical character is the housekeeper Dottie (Talia Benatar) who stands to lose the most in the game her employers are playing. She is best described by another character on stage as salt of the earth : “salty and earthy”. Like many servants, she always knows what’s going on.
The sale contract sits on the table like Chevkov’s gun when the intermission begins. Whether it’s signed or not will decide the future of the family but also the kind of country those on stage want to live in.
The characters fight for every small piece of power left. They order each other around, and enter the room expecting to be heard. Dottie jokes that the working class “will miss your kind when you are gone,” but even at the end no one has fully confronted the reality that they may no longer keep their standing. All they can do is linger.
The Cherry Orchard is playing at The Old Fitz Theatre until August 24th
