The Cherry Orchard

Chekhov’s last play, the Cherry Orchard explores the futility of clinging to a dead past, while others fail to understand its meaning. Mme Ranevskaya returns from Paris for the auction of her family estate to pay off the mortgage. Her family and servants still live there, and a fellow landowner, Lopakhin, advises her that the beloved Cherry Orchard could be saved if tenants are allowed onto a portion of the land for summer holiday homes.

Ranevskaya cannot bear that idea and neither can her family or servants. Will she sell the land or save the Cherry Orchard? The play, written as a comedy but with many tragic elements, shows the relationship between old and new Russia; the old families and the nouveau riche who have all the money but no class or heritage.