The cherry orchard

"Oh, the trees! Nothing but white and green as far as you can see - remember, Lyuba?

Oh my lovely childhood. Waking up to happiness, looking out at blossom and trees and there they are - the same trees, the same blossom - after cruel winter, warmth and light and feeling! In his masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov maintains an exquisite balance between elegiac celebration of the romance of the past, as embodied in the cherry orchard in full bloom, and the awesome prescience of what is so soon to overwhelm Russia - revolution.

The themes are majestic, and yet at the centre of the play is Ranevskaya, a tragic woman who lacks adroitness for survival in a changing world but who has one asset: a capacity for love.

It is her solution - and Chekhov's. This new version of The Cherry Orchard by Pam Gems opened at the Crucible, Sheffield in March 2007."