The Cherry Orchard

The Ranyevskayas, a landowning family, are at the point of bankruptcy and are about to lose their estate

Lopakhin, a businessman, suggests they chop down the orchard and build houses

The family is horrified; the orchard represents the pleasant past, before the mysterious forces of the changing times threatened their idyllic existence

Lopakhin buys the land and proceeds to carry out his plan to destroy the orchard

Though Chekhov was dying when he wrote this play, he didn't lose his perspective on existence and the people who endure it

Terrible, inexplicable things happen to the characters in The Cherry Orchard, but they do not give up. They simply trudge on with a dogged faith in the prospects for happiness

"That's the human comedy, and, if it isn't riotously funny, one feels less alone in the solitary plight, indeed exhilarated, watching it unfold on stage as honestly and buoyantly and poetically as a dream ..

... This is a "Cherry Orchard" that pauses for breath only when life does, for people to recoup after dying a little" ~ Frank Rich, New York Times