By Yvonne Hudson
The profound parallels of family memories and survival intersect in both life and art. Quantum Theatre’s The Cherry Orchard, running through July 31, resonates with the churn of individual lives and society, exploring how uncontrollable change can dictate where and how we live. At OneValley, memories and gentrification are conjured for both the audience and characters in The Cherry Orchard. The setting in the former J&L Steel train roundhouse (dated 1887) is within a stone’s throw of a glitzy new coworking space on one side and still active rails on the other. The irony is crisp and especially resonant at the Hazelwood venue. It is almost another silent character with its own old stories to tell.
Artistic Director Karla Boos has once more deftly chosen a place just right for Quantum’s next story. Libby Appel translated and adapted Anton Chekov’s final play in 2007, and her script has a contemporary ring to the ear. She knows the playwright well, having created original translations of all five Chekhov’s plays for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. There is reverence and clarity, with figures of speech sounding familiar rather than archaic.
Quantum’s dream-like setting calls on the audience’s imagination. Only an antique bookcase (that gets a special tribute book lovers will appreciate) and a few chairs dress the set.
Bryce Cutler‘s set provides a maze-like series of platforms and walkways that practically intersect with two facing banks of audience seats. Actors perform in the space between and beyond. The action spills into adjacent areas, including one representing the titular grove of cherry trees. Three lovely drops at first depict the orchard and are raised to provide a view of the sunset. The clever device keenly reminds us that the estate is not recreated literally, for the performance is outdoors, a welcome setting as summer continues.
Director Katie Brook expertly moves her cast of 12 in and out, over and under a clever center set of platforms under a roofless frame. Audience members in two banks of seats facing each other as the actors move around them in the central and the adjacent outdoor areas, with one side representing the titular cherry tree grove. C. Todd Brown‘s lighting perfectly considers that daylight turns to night during the action. Sound with music by Peter Brucker likewise adds a soundscape without feeling intrusive. At the same time, the occasional creaking of a real-life train and its crossing whistles are charming distractions for which actors may pause.
Costumes by Damian Dominquez are evocative of the period. Cotter Smith – who assists director Katie Brook in company work using Konstantin Stanislavski’s active analysis of actor training.
Having conceived the production with Brook and Quantum’s talented artistic team, Boos steps into the central role of Lyubov Andreyevno, the long-absent matriarch of the Ranevskaya family. She returns for the sale of the estate and her childhood home to pay off debts, and it’s all too little and too late as the family struggles with a flood of memories, dreams, and regrets.
Boos frequently stages and adapts works for Quantum. Still, audiences haven’t seen her in a role recently as she’s the company’s producer. Now, Boos’s Lyubov Andreyevna, or “Mama Ranevskaya,” is a character in crisis whose love of home and family is contrary to her long absence. Boos balances a broad range of bittersweet emotions as her character alternately cares for others while being distressed about her own future. Appropriately Boos is at the heart of the talented ensemble as she is at the company she leads.
Two daughters trying to find their way in life and love represent the full range of hope that is either dashed or realized. Moira Quigley is strong as Varya, the older sibling running the house, and still hopes marriage may reveal a new life. As Anya, Julia de Avilez Rocha conveys youthful anticipation. Their relationship and resilience in the face of change achieve realistic meaning through their detailed and thoughtful characterizations.
Peter Duschenes portrays brother and uncle Gayev. Could he have saved the estate if he stopped talking so much and playing imaginary billiards? Dusehenes gives a solid portrait of a man comfortable with the present while not looking out for his family’s future.
The servants in the house represent the beleaguered lower working class who truly have the most to lose if the family moves apart.
One of Pittsburgh’s theatrical couples, Gregory Lehane as Firs the butler and Laurie Klatscher as the governess Charlotta, are delightful. In drawing the determined loyalty of Firs, Lehane is a quiet force throughout, someone who will carry on regardless of what changes. Lehane’s delivery of past cherry harvest memories is engaging and poignant. Klatscher depicts Charlotta’s quirky and unpredictable charm in varied costumes, moving outdoors and through the house in contrast to Firs’ formal attire and manners. When Charlotta performs magic tricks at the last party the family will hold in the house, it feels like she and the girls have done some routines many times, and it’s charming.
As Lopakhin, Nick Lehane, Laurie and Greg’s son, is an enterprising and gloating symbol of success. His father was a serf (or enslaved person) on the estate, and now Lopakhin, having spun his rubles into gold, can steer the future of the cherry orchard.
Zanny Laird is house servant Dunyasha who aspires to a higher class and pursues Yasha, a young gentleman played by Benjamin Viertel who alternatively flirts and dismisses her. Laird emphasizes Dunaysha’s foolishness and forgetfulness, wrought by her longing to break out of her class. Jake Emmerling‘s Yepikhodov is a bumbling bookkeeper for an estate in the red. He accepts and quotes the title given by others” disaster waiting to happen.” His clownish courting of Dunyasha perhaps would be successful if the foundation of the household were not crumbling.
The elders are diminished, poor, or in debt. John Shepard is Pischik, a neighboring landowner who frequently visits, asking to borrow money. He’s comically tragic through his eventual stroke of luck.
A long-time student and tutor, Trofimov is played by Joseph McGranaghan. He delivers a timeless criticism of the educated who consider themselves entitled. “They pretend to be so serious, they walk around with grave faces, and they are always talking about “important” things. They philosophize, and meanwhile, right before their eyes, the workers are starving. They sleep without beds, thirty or forty in one room, bed bugs everywhere, stench, dampness, moral filth… And obviously, all of this talk, talk, talk is only meant to keep them from looking at the reality of the situation.”
Lopakhin is Trofimov’s capitalistic antithesis. Boos’ Mama, having offered, hopefully, her elder daughter’s hand to him, falls into quiet sobs, tears befitting yet another tragedy in the life of Boos’ character.
Regardless of who “wins,” the truth Trfimov speaks calls to the hope of a new generation. Like so many before and after them, they will protest, campaign and revolt to fuel change for the good of the oppressed. He says: “Humanity is progressing forward, perfecting its strengths. Everything that is unattainable for us now someday will be closer, will be more clear to us. Only we must work. We must support those who strive for a higher truth.”
However, it is fitting that Fis, a relic of the past, has the last word, for what is lost may only live on in either memory or reinvention.
Audiences can enjoy convenient parking (with an accessibility area), indoor restrooms, and some concessions and post-show talks. OneValley is so well-situated for such gatherings; hopefully, others will consider creating similar adventures in a spot ripe for storytelling.
The Cherry Orchard, which runs 120 minutes, is the opening production of Quantum’s 22/23 season. For tickets, pre-show dining options, post-show events, required patron Covid safety, and full-season details are online at Quantum Theatre or the Box Office at 412.362.1713.
Categories: Reviews
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