LA CERISAIE

A huge estate in southern Russia. Gayev and his sister, Lyubov, have let the debts pile up. They are well aware that their cherry orchard is in danger of being auctioned off, but when Lopakhin, the son of a serf who has made his fortune, suggests subdividing the estate and building dachas, the project seems as absurd as it is vulgar… Will the orchard be destroyed? “The whole of Russia is our cherry orchard,” says the student Trofimov, who constantly seems to be announcing the Revolution. Chekhov’s last and most perfect play is like a gentle dream set in the memory, and the upheaval of a world seems almost without gravity compared to the immensity of time that carries off people and objects.