“What immediately strikes you as missing is a sense of place.“
“there is far too much playing for laughs, and it can take centre stage rather than the storytelling“
Veronica Hannon
2 /5 stars
Anton Chekov’s plays, especially his best and last, The Cherry Orchard, invite the audience to plunge deep into the lives of his characters. The current production being staged at Belvoir only provides a wading pool to get the feet wet.
What immediately strikes you as missing is a sense of place. Not set in Russia. Not set in 1904. Eamon Flack plonks his adaptation – as per his director’s notes – somewhere he calls “Rushia”. And it could be anytime in the last century. It feels nowhere in particular.
This vacuum is emphasised by Romaine Harper’s design which allows for minimal props, a few rugs, and pieces of furniture on a near-empty stage. I would have liked a little bit of stateliness, even a bit of mood. My imagination can create the stage picture, but I never did believe the characters were in an old house full of memories or understand why the cherry orchard beyond held such a grip on the estate’s sibling owners.
There is an argument if the stage is a void, then when the actors walk step out from the wings, they must bring it alive. There is certainly a lot of exertion on the part of the performers. Someone always seems to be running through the space as if it were A Midsummer’s Night Dream. There is a cringe-worthy dance sequence and some slapstick, which is difficult to do and not done well. In fact, there is far too much playing for laughs, and it can take centre stage rather than the storytelling. As does, it seems, the need to justify staging this 118-year-old play by hammering home any contemporary preoccupations found in the original to make sure it speaks to punters. While undoubtedly extremely talented, Flack must take the fall for this.
As the Belvoir website states, it is true “Pamela Rabe leads a large cast from today’s Australia”, but not everyone is up to the play’s challenges. Noticeably, several members of the ensemble are weak vocally. It is made even more apparent when veteran Peter Carroll playing the ancient manservant Firs, shuffles upstage back to the audience delivering his lines, and you catch every word. Rabe is a great artist. Still, her performance as Liuba Ranevskaya left me cold. Lucia Mastrantone dips below the surface and owns the stage as the eccentric governess Charlotta. The standout, however, is Mandela Mathia, who offers an open-handed, even compassionate performance as Lopahkin. He appears genuinely incredulous that his sensible if painful advice to sell the estate and save themselves is ignored by Ranevskaya and her brother. By the third act, I was on firmly his side because I was over these irredeemably shallow, annoying people. I do not think that is what Chekov had in mind.
While you never wish to sit through a production of Chekov’s Three Sisters fighting the urge to throw your wallet on the stage so those whinging women can return to Moscow, I suggest the temptation here to hurl an axe is almost irresistible. Very disappointing.
Veronica Hannon, Theatre Now
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