My Reaction to The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

From this play by Anton Chekhov, I have realised that the writer has used comedy as a way to highlight tragedy, which is quite ironic. In my opinion, this was a very good way for the audience to understand the message without having to think to hard about the subtext. For example, a play like Animal Farm will take quite a lot of research to fully understand the message where as in this play it is very obvious.

The use of symbolism in the play is special too. For example, Chekhov uses nature as a symbol of connecting to the past, in this case, the Orchard. Furthermore, I believe that Chekhov uses symbolism in this play because he doesn't want to highlight just about a certain time and place in Russia, he also thinks about how he would like the audience will be able to relate to it universally and not just think about Russia individually.

Modernity vs the Old Russia is important in this play as well because it gives the play a political message. At this time, Russia was transitioning from a harsh form of capitalism which involved a type of slave ownership system called 'Serfdom' to an early form of communism/ Marxism. I believe that it was important for Chekhov to highlight the two sides in the play. It is shown with Gayev and Ranevsky and Lopakhin and Trofimov. I feel these two conflicts in the play were key for Chekhov to portray so the audience could truly understand the conflict as a whole.

Although it was set in a completely different time and place, I think Chekhov made the characters in the play very relate-able for the audience. At first glance, I didn't believe this because I've never been a slave or a slave owner but the characteristics of the people are what make them somewhat relate-able. For example, Ranevsky has very bad money problems which were most likely caused because of PTSD after her son died in a river. Most people have had either money issues or have gone through a really bad incident in their lives, because of this it is very easy for the audience to empathize with her.

Finally, I believe that this play by Anton Chekhov really failed to be naturalistic in my opinion. Although it's point and message have been shown well, I believe that Chekhov has failed to make the play Stanislavksian and I think it is the complete opposite because many scenes are very unnatural and perfect. For example, Ranevsky asks the other characters who's smoking a foul cigar, but after that she no longer continues to be bothered by it. If this scene was really natural she would have continued to go on about it because it really does bother her. This was a recurring issue in the play but as a whole, it was good if you wasn't told it was a naturalistic play. I personally believe it is more melo-dramatic.