THE HANGOVER REPORT – Maly Drama Theatre’s vaudevillian THE CHERRY ORCHARD entertains and terrifies at BAM

the-cherry-orchard_maly-theatreLast night, I trudged through the wind and rain to attend a performance of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, courtesy of St. Petersburg’s Maly Drama Theatre, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Watching this benchmark play in Western theater, it again struck me how far-reaching this work’s (along with Chekhov’s other masterpieces) influence was and continues to be – from the absurd situational comedy of Seinfeld to the collective pathos portrayed by the company of Stephen Karam’s extraordinary play The Humans, which is currently running on Broadway (and should not be missed).

I’ve seen about half a dozen Cherry Orchards in my years of theatergoing, and this one strikes me as perhaps the most entertaining – and terrifying – of the bunch. By veering away from the naturalism that typically characterizes productions of The Cherry Orchard and setting it in an existential antechamber of a crumbling cinema, director Lev Dodin’s deceptively casual production is able to give its actors a wider stylistic palette to work with (most productions of Chekhov’s plays walk a tight, fine line between intense comedy and tragedy). In Mr. Dodin’s vision, these characters are vaudevillians of sorts who are being removed from the film they once inhabited and are forced to, in the famous words of Irving Berlin, “face the music and dance”. In many ways, this Maly Drama Theatre production reminds me of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. Its world is populated by people who are shadows of their former, greater, and more coherent selves. Indeed, they spend much of the evening dealing with the dire reality of their lives by flailing about in self-delusional song and dance. At other times, however, they seem glued to the ground, unable to move, as if in a state of spiritual and/or moral paralysis. They know their number is up, both literally and figuratively. Self-aware, they waltz headlong into the abyss. This is terrifying stuff and it’s richly realized in Mr. Dodin’s immersive production, which takes thrilling, full advantage of the Harvey stage and auditorium, in all its dilapidated grandeur.

The all-Russian cast is superb (the show is performed in Russian with English surtitles). In this production, Ksenia Rappoport seems strikingly young in the role of Ranevskaya. She makes it work, though – hers is a magnetic, manic stage presence that’s right for the role. Together with the excellent Dannia Abyzova and Elizaveta Boiarskaia as Anya and Varya, respectively, these three Russian beauties could probably get away with – and do rather well – being cast in Three Sisters. Danila Kozlovskiy also seems oddly youthful for Lopakhin, but his dynamic, highly physical performance is one of the “vaudevillian” highlights of the evening for me. In an interesting directorial move, there’s more chemistry between Ranevskaya and Lopakhin than I’ve seen in the past, which unlocks another dimension in Lopakhin’s motivations. Finally, kudos to the subtle, gently immersive work by set designer Aleksander Borovsky and lighting designer Damir Ismagilov.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Off-Broadway, Play
Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
2 hours, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Through February 27

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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