The Cherry Orchard: A Comedy in Four Acts

by Anton Chekhov (Author), Anton Chekhov (Author), Stephen Karam (Adapter)

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $15.56

  Anton Chekhov was a master whose daring work revolutionized theatre. Robert Burstein declared that there are none who bring the drama to a higher realization of its human role. In The Cherry Orchard, his last full-length play, an impoverished landowning family is unable to face the fact that their estate is about to be auctioned off. Lopakhin, a local merchant, presents numerous options to save it, including cutting down their prized cherry orchard. But the family is stricken with denial. The Cherry Orchard charts the precipitous descent of a wealthy family and in the process creates a bold meditation on social change and bourgeois materialism.

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $13.82

  Mamet discusses the real theme of Chekhov's play and presents his own version of the story in which a Russian aristocratic family is forced to sell its estate to the son of a peasant.

• New

  Paperback
  1978

  $15.20

  Frayn's translation, which strikes me as splendidly lucid and alive...will be acted again and again (New Statesman) In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces deeply rooted in history and the society in which they live. Their estate is hopelessly in debt and when urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they are confronted by an impossible decision. At the time when The Cherry Orchard was written, the years before the revolution of 1905, Chekhov considered revolution in Russia irreversible and desirable. (Melchinger: Anton Chekhov)