The Cherry Orchard - Donmar Warehouse 2024

Impressive. Clearly a fully invested cast making hay with a re-worked script they believed in

It's vivid, bold, perhaps challenging, certainly confident. Societal change was balanced and clear, as was comedy, tragedy and a hint of farce. I really liked the choices and thought.

Nina Hoss held it all together most excellently >>


I can’t put my finger on why a a cappella verse of Angel of Montgomery hit hard but it did.

Found this surprisingly terrific. Unapologetic art: * 4 1/2

I was comprehensively bored by this one, I was looking at my watch from 45 minutes onwards. I liked his Three Sisters but here, unlike the Robert Icke Uncle Vanya, the directorial interventions didn't illuminate new aspects of the play at all, they just came across as self-indulgence and they weren't even novel, just the same tired old Brechtian tropes that we've been seeing for the past 50 years - the third wall broken, lights on, and everyone gets to sing a song, albeit only songs that are intended to impress us with the middle-aged director's taste in music rather than having any relevance to the play. Although Nina Hoss didn't get to sing - why not ? Maybe he didn't dare ask her. And everyone was talking the same too - like the director I assume - the same slang and insults whether the character was 16 or 86 or a servant or an aristocrat which seems very odd and is not realistic at all.

I liked Nina Hoss and Adeel Akhtar and it was a pity they'd been invited to take part in a pantomime version of the play. A couple of scenes they were in towards the end when the director had run out of ideas and were played almost according to the text were quite good. The rest of the cast did plenty of self-conscious "acting" more akin to the improvisation that happens in early rehearsals to develop the characters and poor old Eanna Hardwicke's comedy shtick was greeted with stony silence from the audience. Not sure why they needed to gender-swap Firs but I was glad to see June Watson still going strong.

2*

Indeed, and you liked the Young Vic's "Three Sisters" as well, so definitely not someone who disapproves of Andrews' techniques per se.

The post you quote was intended as a caution to conservative types, who disapprove of such techniques, to save their hard earned money on this one, as they definitely won't like it.

Everyone else, open to the use of such techniques, will be free to judge whether they are well used. You think not, and that's fair.

I had a rousing emotional reaction to this, so the techniques worked well for me, as did everything else, so I did in fact rate this highly, though I'm probably innately more conservative than you (I adore safe and cosy, traditional and period, large effects and pretty vistas lol).

The audience when I went were engaged and willing to go on this journey.

It seems perfectly reasonable that one person/director's 'edgy' might be anothers art. The former suggests trite, the latter ambition. Ambitious directors will miss. See Andrew's cv for which type he might be.

How could you tell that ? 

Well, I could see the audience too but I couldn't tell what they were thinking. From what I could tell the audience when I was there were as split as the reviews, there were about 10 who gave a standing ovation at the end (the 5* group) and about 10 who left at the interval (the 1*). Of the rest only about 3-4 of them ever laughed out loud for the comedy moments. At the end the views of the people immediately sitting around me were negative (one called the whole experience "punishing") but no doubt there were positive views from others. There were a few Germans near me too presumably there for Nina Hoss so they probably liked it.

As you liked it I'd be interested to hear your take on this bit:

I didn’t like this at all, and I really wanted to. Having never seen The Cherry Orchard nor anything directed by this person I had no idea what to expect, and was really disappointed. I hated the way it was staged, the lights were directly on my eye line in second row all the first act which didn’t help.

it felt like there are too many actors and it’s very hard to work out who they are id you aren’t familiar with the play- or to even care about them. As there is nowhere for anyone to sit or lean on they keep pacing and running around the stage in a way that was exaggerated/ forced/

It was all confusing and slightly unhinged, including the costumes. The acting was over the top and weird.
I haven’t made up my mind if it’s the play I didn’t like much or the production or both. Likely both! I was bored and completely indifferent to anyone’s plight in the story. Lady sat next to me left at the interval, I should have done the same…only saving grace of this evening was the free wine.

I agree with those who didn’t feel the singing worked, but (unlike Jan’s experience) when I went there was a lot of audience laughter, particularly in the first hour, and I think that made it a lot easier to enjoy the style of this production.

I'm puzzled why other people laughing make it easier to enjoy the production?

Thank you for explaining- I never would have guessed that Lopakhin and Varya are usually the central focus. I actually didn't get what Akhtar did/said to her at the end when she was laying on top of the carpet. But I had long since stopped caring at that point, I just wanted the whole thing to end and go home.