Theatre review: The Cherry Orchard |
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By Joyce McMillan |
... Charles Nowosielski moves deftly through the four acts of Chekhov's mighty drama, using just a few simple pieces of furniture - moved and resettled on the lawn above the loch, between acts - to conjure up the house and garden where the glamorous, ageing Madame Ranevskaya and her brother, Leonid, comprehensively fail to face up to the economic realities of modern estate management, and are finally forced to sell their beloved estate to the former serf and rising man of business, Lopakhin.
There are plenty of decent performances in Nowosielski's production, with Helen Cuinn in fine form as Ranevskaya's young daughter, Anya, and Suzanne Dance impressive as Charlotta, the eccentric governess.
In the end, though, it's Corinne Harris's beautiful, perfectly pitched performance as Ranevskaya that holds the production together, to its beautiful, lamplit end: ...