Since The Cherry Orchard was only performed for one weekend, not everyone got a chance to see it. But you have another opportunity to enjoy this remarkable production! We have made video recording of the live performance. (This is legal because our translation is not under copyright.) The Cherry Orchard video was shown on Saugus cable access television every Friday at 7:00 PM during April 2009, and occasionally since then.
For the same price as the live performance, you can also own your own copy of the professionally produced DVD. Click here for the DVD order form.
For the second show in our 40th season, the award-winning Theatre Company of Saugus presented The Cherry Orchard. In this four-act tragi-comedy, Anton Chekhov’s most popular play, the Gayev family faces foreclosure, bankruptcy, and the conversion of their beloved estate into a housing subdivision. The old regime of loyalty between aristocrats and servants is giving way to the new economic era of capitalism. The fate of the beautiful orchard becomes a symbol of the fate of all the characters in this unassailable masterpiece. It begins with a homecoming, and ends with a leave-taking. In the meantime, the characters try to start, stop, or resume various romantic entanglements.
In this harsh economic climate, we try and think back how we got ourselves in this mess, and how we can get out of it. The characters in Anton Chekhov’s tragi-comic play The Cherry Orchard do the same. Though written at the start of the 20th century, the woes examined in the play — foreclosure, bankruptcy, unrequited love – recur in all eras. Chekhov’s characters approach their situation in various ways, with denial, or with determination, or with irony. Some face up to a new economic era, and some try to sort out their romantic entanglements. The mix of comedy and tragedy is very true to life. And yet, when the outlook is grim, the antics and foolishness of the characters remind us that even when things are rough, we still have one another.
Performances were during one weekend 5-8 March 2009. The location was the Town Hall in Saugus, Massachusetts. This production was directed by Larry Segel. The stage manager was Mary Moffett.
The talented and enthusiastic cast of The Cherry Orchard:
- Yermolai Lopakhin, a businessman … Matt Huffman
- Dunyasha, a maid … Nicole Leotsakos
- Semyon Epikhodov, an accountant … Joe Coppellotti
- Firs, 87, the old butler … Frank Budelman
- Lyubov Ranevskaya, the estate owner … Wendy Lippe
- Anya, her 17-year-old daughter … Amanda Allen
- Varya, her 24-year-old daughter … Carolina Lanney
- Leonid Gayev, Lyubov’s brother … Stephen Russo
- Carlotta, a governess … Lisa Scopa
- Boris Semyonov-Pishchik, a neighbor … Steve Walsh
- Yasha, a valet … Nicholas Beach
- Peter Trofimov, a student … Nicholas Meunier
- Beggar … Jessica Stockton
- Stationmaster … Brian Dion
Click here to read the script of The Cherry Orchard, although this is not the translation that we used in our production.
Theatre Company of Saugus 