REVIEW: The Cherry Orchard at the Windsor Theatre Royal

As lockdown struck in 2020 the Harold Pinter Theatre was presenting a wonderful adaptation of Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya with an all-star ensemble cast and a dramatic evocative staging and witty modernisation of the language. It made the classic period piece seem relevant and exciting and emotionally engaging. As the first Lockdown eased Bill Kenwright announced a bold programming plan to assemble a repertory company of high-quality actors to stage two classics, Hamlet and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard with gender-, colour-, and age-blind casting. It sounded an exciting basis to reopen his Windsor Theatre Royal but further lockdowns have delayed the project until 2021. His Hamlet has now come and gone, and the Cherry Orchard has now opened and will run until 13th November. As they note in the programme Hamlet broke box office records (despite some mixed reviews) as many like us booked on the basis of Ian McKellen’s name alone, but Cherry Orchard may prove a tougher sell.

Sean Mathias again directs with a set design by Lee Newby and an adaption by Martin Sherman but from the start you question the underlying creative concept behind their production. They again put the audience on either side of the stage for no obvious reason except to increase capacity but in their brightly coloured clothes and blue face masks, they become a massive distraction when your attention drifts from the action on stage which in this three-hour show it often does. Whereas the Uncle Vanya staging created an evocative theatrical setting for that show, the design here is half baked. A pale grey sketchy floor and audience seating create a cartoonish setting with a rear door flown in to symbolise indoor scenes and flown out to create outdoor locations. The rear wall of the stage is whitewashed but the effect is to highlight the wires and holes in it which keep catching your eyes. When they open the stage access door to create a visible offstage space for servants, they too become a distraction to the on-stage words. Curiously the bare indoor floor of the nursery is covered with rugs and cushions when the story takes us outside. The Cherry Orchard itself is viewed through the fourth wall and chopped down behind the main auditorium. Only the sound effects of birds, horse-drawn carriage and chopping add any sense of realism to the setting.

REVIEW: The Cherry Orchard at the Union Theatre

Anton Chekov's last play The Cherry Orchard was first performed in 1904 and has become a classic of world theatre. I last saw it at the National Theatre in 2011 in a version starring Zoe Wanamaker as Ranyevskya in which the emotional and touching loss of her home and beloved Cherry Orchard was beautifully played . In this fresh adaption the running time has been cut to less than two hours and the setting moved forward to the spring and autumn of 1917 as the Tsar is overthrown and murdered. In doing so Phil Willmott as adapter and director has given the play more focus on the social turmoil created by the rise to power of Stalin and the Bolsheviks and the changes the new order brings . He draws parallels with the Russia of today and its threat to world order. It is a chilling and dramatic reworking which keeps the essence of the story but creates a fresh feeling production.

The simple set design by Justin Williams and Jonny Rust sets the scene of the dilapidated interior of the aristocrat's house, gardens and the local railway platform. The steps down into the room create different acting levels which are very effectively used in the cast groupings. In the early scenes the student Bolshevik Trofimov enters from the garden , but in the second act he enters through the front door and dominates the room from the higher level. The setting is enhanced by an atmospheric lighting design by Sam Waddington. There is a continuous musical and noise underscore to the production which emphasises the change taking place in the world offstage.