Free Sample Essays > Literature
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard was a very interesting play, one quite different from the other performances we have seen this quarter. Chekhov has a very unique way of writing his plays. I personally did not enjoy this performance as much as some of the others I have seen, but overall it was still a great production.
Anton Chekhov’s work is focused on the idea that the lack of action is precisely the point of the production. The plot is what makes the relationship between the actors, not the story itself. His plays are based on indirect, not direct action. He doesn’t include any moralizing in his plays, or making the audience feel like there was a lesson to be learned. His characters consist of heroism or enduring personality, and his villains take advantage of others, and are more like predators than villains in the formal context of the word. The language he uses through his characters is enforcing the idea of the future. In stead of saying that things are good, he will emphasize that “it will be great” and the future is full of great expectations. There is no dwelling on the past. His plays just sort of end, with no real climax to leave the audience in feeling good.
There were many production concepts that went into the building of this performance. One day during lecture we had a visit from Vicki Scott, who explained the many things that go into creating a performance like this one. She concluded that it’s not just the actors that make a performance good. It is the lighting, set design, and costuming that makes the performance tie together and be great. The director of this production wanted to create a feeling of realism. He wanted to avoid the architecture of the proscenium arch and make the audience feel like what they were seeing was real, and really feel like they are in the time period where the story takes place. Photographs of art and other real pictures were the inspiration for coming up with the set design and the way the lighting would fit in with the characters on the stage. The lighting in this production was very noticeable. There wasn’t just a spotlight on the character speaking. The whole group on stage was lit up and each character possessed its own lighting based on the clothing they were wearing or where they were standing on stage. The lighting would change as the mood changed between the characters. The lighting also helped to distinguish when the scene was outside or if they were looking out at the cherry orchard and what it might look like. The lighting was a huge aspect of this play and allowed for the characters to express their words and thoughts in a much more dramatic way.
This play is very much about what is seen and what is not seen. The cherry orchard exists beyond the window [next page]