It was only to comfort his wife, Olga, who was recovering from a miscarriage, that he finally let her in on the play’s title, whispering it to her despite the fact that they were alone.īy October 1903, the play was finished and sent to the Moscow Art Theatre. As late as the Summer of 1902 he still had not shared anything about the play with anyone in his immediate family or the Moscow Art Theatre. Guarded by nature, Chekhov seemed overly secretive about all facets of the work, including the title. In a letter he wrote, “Every sentence I write strikes me as good for nothing.” Throughout this time his chronic tuberculosis also further incapacitated him. Indeed, trees are often unspoken, symbolic heroes and victims of his stories and plays.Ĭhekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard during the course of several years, alternating between periods of giddiness and frustration, which he considered as bordering upon sloth. Finally, the first inklings of the genesis for the play that would be his last came in a terse notebook entry of 1897, “Cherry Orchard.” Today, Chekhov’s Yalta garden survives alongside The Cherry Orchard as a monument to a man whose feeling for trees equaled his feeling for theatre.
A lovely and locally famous cherry orchard stood on the farm of family friends where he spent childhood vacations, and in his early short story, “Steppe,” Chekhov depicts a young boy crossing the Ukraine amidst fields of cherry blossoms. Astrov from his play, Uncle Vanya, whose love of forests is his only peace). It was in those woodlands and forests of his holidays in Ukraine that he had first nurtured his ecological passion (this passion is reflected in the character of Dr. Also, returning on one trip to his childhood haunts in Taganrog, he was further horrified by the devastating effects of industrial deforestation. After relocating to Yalta due to his tuberculosis, Chekhov was devastated to learn that the buyer of his former estate had cut down a majority of the orchard. Later in his life, living on a country estate outside Moscow, Chekhov developed an interest in gardening and planted his own cherry orchard. These financial and domestic upheavals imprinted themselves on his memory greatly and reappear in the core action of The Cherry Orchard. At approximately the same time, his childhood home in Taganrog was sold to pay off its mortgage.
A former lodger, Gabriel Selivanov, offered to help her financially, but in turn secretly bought the house for himself. When Chekhov was sixteen, his mother went into debt after having been cheated by builders she had hired to construct a small house. As Chekhov’s last play, many of his life experiences are exemplified within the story. The Cherry Orchard has a long and rich production history. List of Cast members for The Cherry Orchard Cast October 2011 List of Creative Staff for The Cherry Orchard Creative Staff
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