Theatre review of Anton Chekhov's Cherry Orchard at the Old Vic
Ethan Hawke and Simon Russell Beale star in Sam Mendes's production as part of the 'Bridge Project' double bill
10 June 2009
Rating: 4/5
It's no surprise that Chekhov's 1904 play about a noble family blind to their imminent bankruptcy feels especially timely.
But what you probably won't expect, if you're a Chekhov virgin, is the comedy knocking along with the chilling bleakness.
Simon Russell Beale is in outstanding form as Lopahkin, a shambling petit-bourgeois adviser to the ruinously extravagant Ranevskaya (Sinead Cusack) and her family of vacuous buffoons.
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Exasperated at their profligacy, Lopakhin’s initially caring disposition gives way to an ugly triumphalism as he turns the tables on his supposedly ‘superior’ employers.
There’s plenty else to admire including an impressively cantankerous performance from Ethan Hawke as student Trofimov. Claiming to be unmoved by the realities of finance and their emotional consequences, he becomes just as involved as the audience in this unsettling, poignant warning about the perils of ignoring imminent disaster.
Read more London theatre reviews
Read our review of The Winter's Tale
The Cherry Orchard , The Old Vic , to 15 Aug, 103 The Cut, SE1 8NB, 0870 060 6628
Read our review of The Winter's Tale
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