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In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history and in the society around them. Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1903
鈥淚鈥檓 leaving for Paris, I will live there on the money that your grandmother from Yaroslavl sent to buy the estate - long live your grandmother! - and this money won鈥檛 last me for long.鈥澛�
鈥淚f only my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see what is happening - how their Ermolay, beaten and barely literate Ermolay who used to go barefoot in winter, how this Ermolay bought the most beautiful estate in the world. I bought the estate where father and grandfather used to be slaves, where they weren鈥檛 even allowed in the kitchens.鈥澛�
(Side note: Unlike many contemporary Russian writers, Anton Chekhov did not come from aristocracy. His grandfather was a serf who bought freedom for himself and his family. Chekhov had to work for a living, and trained to be a medical doctor.)
鈥淲hat she can鈥檛 get into her narrow mind is that we are above love. To bypass the small and illusory things that prevent us from freedom and happiness - that鈥檚 the goal and the meaning of our lives. Forward! We are unstoppably heading towards the bright star that is burning so far ahead! Forward! Keep up, my friends!鈥澛�The new vulgar class of servants, with overinflated egos due to their self-perceived importance by 鈥渁ssociation鈥� with old ruling classes. The new self-made middle class, whose practicality and pragmatism, although obviously successful, can easily seem crass in the face of the old aristocratic refinery and gloss. The former serf, now a devoted servant, who is so unable to move on from the life he remembers and idolizes, that he seems content to meekly lie down and die when abandoned by his masters. They all are targets of his wit and satire, and you, the reader, can make out whatever suits you out of this.
Lopakhin: 鈥淵ou know, I get up at five in the morning, work all day, always deal with money, mine and others鈥�, and I see how people are. You just need to start doing anything and you鈥檒l realize how few of honest, honorable people there are. Sometimes, when I can鈥檛 sleep, I think - dear Lord, you have us enormous forests, unmeasurable fields, deepest horizons, and living here we should have been giants鈥︹€�
Lyubov Andreevna: 鈥淲hat do you need giants for?.. They are only fine in fairytales, and otherwise are frightening.鈥澛�