Cherry Orchard review Scotsman

 Scotsman 4-star Review

 

Theatre review: The Cherry Orchard

 

By Joyce McMillan
Published: 27/8/2011

 
...it's hard not to be seduced by the special charm of Theatre Alba's beautiful new version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, with a new text by leading Scottish playwright Jo Clifford, fine live music from a three-piece band led by Richard Cherns, and a gloriously appropriate setting, for this of all plays, in the kirk garden that slopes down to Duddingston Loch, just behind Arthur's Seat.
 

... 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: ...

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