"The Cherry Orchard" on Tverskoy Boulevard. The performance "The Cherry Orchard" on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater About the history of the creation and success of the "Cherry Orchard"

In the role of Lopakhin, the audience will see Anton Khabarov, Ranevskaya - Karina Andolenko

On December 2, 3 and 29, the Provincial Theater will present its version of the great play. In the role of Lopakhin, the audience will see Anton Khabarov, Ranevskaya - Karina Andolenko, and Alexander Tyutin will play Gaev.

It would seem, well, what's new can be seen in the play written in 1903? But the directors succeed: everyone who has touched Chekhov always has a certain key to him. The production of the Provincial Theater also has its own accent: here Lopakhin's personal drama comes to the fore, however, the theme of the passing era and the inevitable loss of the values ​​of the past sounds no less clear and poignant. The story of the loss of the cherry orchard, staged by Sergei Bezrukov, becomes the story of long-term and hopeless love - Lopakhin's love for Ranevskaya. About love, which Lopakhin needs to uproot from his heart, like a cherry orchard, in order to live on.

The cherry orchard itself will live its life in the production. It will enter the time of flowering and withering, and then completely disappear from the face of the earth - as the personification of the past, albeit beautiful, but irrevocably gone.

Many of the director's moves chosen by Sergei Bezrukov, and indeed the whole idea of ​​the performance, were dictated or “heard” by him after the decision was made that Anton Khabarov would play Lopakhin. Anton Pavlovich himself dreamed of Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky becoming the first performer of the role of Lopakhin - he saw this character as thin, vulnerable, aristocratic, despite his low origin. This is how Lopakhin is seen by director Sergei Bezrukov:

Anton Khabarov has both strength and vulnerability. We have a story about crazy, passionate love. Lopakhin fell in love with Ranevskaya as a boy, and many years later he continues to love her, and he cannot help himself. This is a story about a man who rose from the bottom and made himself - and he was not driven by a passion for profit, but by a great love for a woman whom he idolized all his life and strove to become worthy of her.

Part of the rehearsals took place at the estate of K.S. Stanislavsky in Lyubimovka, where Chekhov visited in the summer of 1902 and where he had the idea for this play. A sketch of S. Bezrukov's play "The Cherry Orchard" was shown in June of this year in the natural scenery of the estate, in a real cherry orchard. The show took place at the opening of the Stanislavsky Season. Summer festival of provincial theaters.

No matter how many performances of “The Cherry Orchard” are in Moscow, there will be an audience for each. The Gorky Moscow Art Theater restored the performance based on the immortal play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, the premiere of which appeared on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater back in 1904: Ranevskaya was then played by Olga Knipper, and her brother Gaev was played by Stanislavsky himself.

In 1988, Sergei Danchenko staged at the Moscow Art Theater. Gorky's "The Cherry Orchard", which was successfully staged for almost thirty years, and now the performance with an updated cast, again met with its audience.

The stellar cast of the theatre, directed by the illustrious Tatiana Doronina, is presented in full color in the renewed performance. But, in addition to the great and famous, young actors of the legendary theater were introduced into the production. The daughter of Ranevskaya, seventeen-year-old Anya, is played by Elena Korobeynikova, and with her youth and enthusiasm, the actress seems to color the life of the inhabitants of the old house, which will soon be sold for debts. But it is the youth that is the future, and the young actress is eager to realize her dreams about the future. And thanks to the sensual performance of Elena Korobeynikova, the viewer practically sees this future, it seems close and inexpressibly beautiful.

The production takes place in an old manor, where Ranevskaya returns from Paris with her daughter Anya. The scenery of the performance (the interior of the house is furnished with great love) emphasizes the place and time at which the visitors arrive. Entering the house, they seem to fall into oblivion, succumbing to the spell of this place, which will forever remain in their hearts. Thanks to the heartfelt play of the actors, the viewer is ready to believe that the estate was once the most comfortable place on earth for the heroes.

The interior of the estate is divided into a room with windows overlooking the garden, and a bright corridor - here they dance at balls, which turn out to be Pyrrhic for the owner of the estate, Ranevskaya. Here are all the heroes of the play and move in these two spaces, as in two worlds. They either plunge into dreams about the future, or into nostalgia for the past, which they want to return.

The main character, she is also the main victim of circumstances, Ranevskaya, performed by the brilliant Honored Artist of Russia Lidia Matasova, appears before the viewer as a “blind” embodiment of what is happening around the garden and the house. Ranevskaya lives with memories and does not notice the obvious at all. But she is at home (for now) and therefore does not rush anywhere, and hopes for the best, which, alas, will never come.

Tatyana Shalkovskaya, who played Varya, most likely understands the true state of affairs better than others, and therefore she is sad, hushed and all in black. But she, too, is unable to help the audience with anything other than sympathy, and even furtively regretting her bitter fate.

A house with a garden also embodies his character on the stage - he breathes his life, from very near serf times. After all, it was then that old man Firs (persuasive Gennady Kochkozharov) wanted to marry, and life was in full swing and cherries were “dried, soaked, pickled, jam was cooked ...”. But the time of serfdom is gone, and those gathered cannot find a new way to “make money”. From that time, only the habit of wasting money remained, and Lyubov Andreevna knows how to do this more than anyone else. And although she recognizes this weakness for herself, at the same time she cannot resist it in any way. Like, probably, each of us, she has enough of these weaknesses, but maybe that's why she forgives the shortcomings of others and pities everyone.

And although the performance is essentially deeply lyrical, the performance deeply reflects the characters of the characters, who remain themselves in the proposed circumstances. Even the thick-skinned Lopakhin performed by Valentin Klementyev will stop within the walls of the estate, subject to memories of his own difficult childhood. And Charlotte, performed by Irina Fadina, appears playful, hiding her own disorder and indecision behind a wide smile. The “gentle creature” of Dunyash, embodied by Yulia Zykova, authentically depicts an inappropriate delight from everything that happens and reluctantly brushes off the clerk Epikhodov (Sergey Gabrielyan), who made her an offer.

Farewell to the native noble nest, which all the heroes have to do, will not save either deliberate fun or dancing with music. Illusions dissipate and the words of Anya comfort her mother and persuade her to leave the old house as soon as possible: “... We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this, you will see it, you will understand, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul like the sun in the evening…”

Everyone has the right to a “new garden”, but not everyone can afford it.

Sabadash Vladimir.

Photo - Yuri Pokrovsky.

The premiere of Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater on January 17, 1904. Directed by K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.
Artist - Simov V.A.

K.S. Stanislavsky recalls how Anton Pavlovich came up with the name of the play:

“Finally, we got to the point. Chekhov paused, trying to be serious. But he did not succeed - a solemn smile from within made its way out.

Look, I found a wonderful title for the play. Wonderful! he announced, looking straight at me.

Which? I got excited.

The Cherry Orchard, - and he rolled with joyful laughter.

I did not understand the reason for his joy and did not find anything special in the title. However, in order not to upset Anton Pavlovich, I had to pretend that his discovery made an impression on me. What excites him in the new title of the play? I began to carefully interrogate him, but again I came across this strange feature of Chekhov: he did not know how to talk about his creations. Instead of explaining, Anton Pavlovich began to repeat in different ways, with all sorts of intonations and sound coloring:

The Cherry Orchard. Look, it's a wonderful name! The Cherry Orchard. Cherry!

From this, I only understood that it was about something beautiful, dearly loved: the charm of the name was conveyed not in words, but in the very intonation of Anton Pavlovich's voice. I cautiously hinted at this to him; my remark saddened him, the solemn smile disappeared from his face, our conversation ceased to stick, and there was an awkward pause.

After this meeting, several days or a week passed ... Once, during a performance, he came to my dressing room and sat down at my table with a solemn smile. Chekhov liked to watch us prepare for the performance. He followed our make-up so closely that you could guess from his face whether you successfully or unsuccessfully put paint on your face.

Listen, not the Cherry, but the Cherry Orchard, - he announced and rolled with laughter.

At first I didn’t even understand what it was about, but Anton Pavlovich continued to savor the title of the play, emphasizing the gentle sound “ё” in the word “Cherry”, as if trying with its help to caress the former beautiful, but now unnecessary life that he destroyed with tears in his play. This time I understood the subtlety: "The Cherry Orchard" is a business, commercial garden that generates income. Such a garden is needed now. But the "Cherry Orchard" does not bring income, it keeps in itself and in its blooming whiteness the poetry of the former aristocratic life. Such a garden grows and blooms for a whim, for the eyes of spoiled aesthetes. It is a pity to destroy it, but it is necessary, since the process of the country's economic development requires it.

K.S. Stanislavsky. A.P. Chekhov in the Art Theater (Memoirs).
In the book: A.P. Chekhov in the memoirs of his contemporaries. Publishing house "Fiction", Moscow, 1960. P. 410-411

The Cherry Orchard (1904)

The first actress to play the role of Ranevskaya was the wife of Anton Pavlovich, the brilliant actress Olga Knipper. The performance also featured: M. P. Lilina (Anya), M. F. Andreeva (Varya), K. S. Stanislavsky (Gaev), L. M. Leonidov (Lopakhin), V. I. Kachalov (Trofimov), I. M. Moskvin (Epikhodov), A. R. Artem (Firs) and others. Then Chekhov considered that Stanislavsky "ruined" his play, but to this day "The Cherry Orchard" is one of the most popular plays among theater directors , and the role of Ranevskaya is a pearl in the repertoire of any actress. Among them are Alla Tarasova, Alla Demidova, Alisa Freindlich, Renata Litvinova and many others.

The premiere had, according to Stanislavsky, "only an average success, and we condemned ourselves for not being able, from the very first time, to show the most important, beautiful and valuable in the play."

Chekhov was brought to the premiere almost by force, and even then only towards the end of the third act. And in the last intermission, they arranged, with pomp, with long speeches and offerings, a celebration on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his literary activity.

“At the very anniversary,” Stanislavsky later recalled, “he was not cheerful, as if foreseeing his imminent death. When, after the third act, he, deathly pale and thin, standing on the proscenium, could not stop coughing while he was greeted with addresses and gifts, our hearts sank painfully. From the auditorium they shouted to him to sit down. But Chekhov frowned and stood through the long and drawn-out celebration of the jubilee, at which he laughed good-naturedly in his works. But even then he couldn't help but smile. One of the writers began his speech with almost the same words with which Gaev greeted the old wardrobe in the first act: “Dear and highly respected ... (instead of the word“ wardrobe ”the writer inserted the name of Anton Pavlovich) ... greeting you," etc. Anton Pavlovich squinted at me, the performer Gaev, and an insidious smile ran across his lips. The anniversary came out solemn, but it left a heavy impression. He smelled like a funeral. It was sad in my soul ... Anton Pavlovich died (approx. July 15, 1904), without waiting for the real success of his last fragrant work.

Of course, Anton Pavlovich and Olga Leonardovna discussed the play and preparations for it in their letters to each other:

“And you, dusik, at first wanted to make Ranevskaya calm down, right? Remember - you showed me her words in the 2nd act? And how difficult it is to play! How much lightness, grace and skill are needed! We read a play yesterday.
They listened, caught every word and applauded at the end. »

“The roles have not yet been distributed, rehearsals have not yet been scheduled. Charlotte, I think, will be played by Muratova. Rumor has it that if there was an actress on Ranevskaya, I would have to play Charlotte. Those. actors say, and then only two, I haven’t heard anything from the directors.

“No, I never wanted to make Ranevskaya calm down. Only one death can calm such a woman down. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean. It is not difficult to play Ranevskaya, you just need to take the right tone from the very beginning; you need to come up with a smile and a manner of laughing, you need to be able to dress. Well, yes, you can do everything, if there was a hunt, you would be healthy.

“Lilina is terribly anxious to play Anya. If, he says, I'm old, they can tell me and kick me out, and I won't be offended. Varya does not want to play, she is afraid to repeat herself. K.S. says she should play Charlotte. They also varied as follows: Ranevskaya - Maria Fedor., I am Charlotte, but hardly. I want a graceful role."

“I just visited the Morozovs, dined with them, and, of course, everyone was talking about the theater and the Cherry Orchard. Zinaida is delighted with the title, she has not read the play, but she expects a lot of charm and poetry and ordered you to convey it. With Savva, everything was decided who should play whom. The kids are just as cute. The palace atmosphere is oppressive. Savva left after dinner, and I sat and chatted; chatted and thought about dresses for Ranevskaya.

“You don’t really learn your role, you still need to consult with me; and do not order dresses before my arrival.
Muratova so, in a hostel, is funny; tell her to be funny in Charlotte, that's the main thing. And Lilina will hardly have Anya, there will be an old-fashioned girl with a raspy voice, and nothing more.

“We talked about the roles, figured out the characters, relationships: Ranevskaya, Ani, Vari, Gaeva. Today is a continuation.
Everything is soft and pleasant. We watched two approximate scenery of the 1st act on the stage. Dusik, when you arrive, you will tell me where in my role it will be possible to insert a French. phrases characteristic. Is it possible?”

“It will be good. I found a laugh for Ranevskaya. Const. Serg. ordered me to study at home without fail in an elegant dress, so that I would get used to feeling at least approximately a chic woman. I took a dress from "Dreams" and will work in it. Technically, this is a hell of a difficult role. Thank you my dear husband. You gave me a task. Now I don't have a moment's rest. You can make me jealous of Ranevskaya. I only know her now.”

From this correspondence, we learn that Olga Leonardovna is rehearsing the role of Ranevskaya in a dress from the play "In dreams", and that Anton Pavlovich did not allow buying dresses for The Cherry Orchard without him.

In April 1904, the Moscow Art Theater was on tour in St. Petersburg. The play was attended by Maria Gavrilovna Savina (the leading actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater, who also played Ranevskaya), who expressed her displeasure at the fact that Lamanova made her the same hood as Olga Leonardovna.

“Yesterday I watched Savina, I was in the restrooms. All she had to say to me was that I killed her with my hood. Lamanova made her exactly the same and everyone will say that Savina copied from me. Lamanova will fly in now.

In the summer of 1936, the Moscow Art Theater toured Kyiv. The performances "Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich" and "The Cherry Orchard" were shown. Olga Leonardovna writes a letter to Nadezhda Petrovna from Kyiv:

"Dear Nadezhda Petrovna,

I don't know how to thank you for a wonderful, wonderful costume.
And the dress without a coat famously sits, just charming. Kiss you.
Kyiv is beautiful, green, good air; I walk a lot and take a little rest from the Moscow crowd.
Will you breathe soon?
I send you a big, big hello.
Hugs and kisses.

Yours O. Knipper-Chekhov"

Spectators of the Art Theater of the 1930s knew and loved Ranevskaya performed by Olga Knipper. The fact that Olga Leonardovna continued to play her famous role in The Cherry Orchard illuminated the old performance, which was still going on in the original mise-en-scenes of 1904, with enduring poetry. Her participation was the main poetic meaning of the performance and saved it from the touch of a museum. She retained her creative right to this role to the end. Ranevskaya remained her creation, which turned out to be unsurpassed whenever other, even the most talented actresses entered the performance. It seemed that Olga Leonardovna alone possessed some kind of cherished secret of this subtlest, most complex in terms of internal psychological interweaving of Chekhov's image. Guessing even then, at the beginning of the century, that the most difficult thing for an actress in Ranevskaya is to find her "lightness", she did not burden her in any way over the years. When you now listen to the phonographic recording of The Cherry Orchard, its skill is striking - the filigree pattern of each phrase, the weight of each word, the richness of shades, the extraordinary courage and accuracy of the most unexpected internal transitions, the harmonious harmony of the whole. But when Olga Leonardovna was Ranevskaya on stage, hardly anyone in the hall thought about her skill. It seemed that she did not play her at all and everything that she does was born right there, it goes without saying that it exists outside of her acting intention and skill.

Interestingly, Olga Leonardovna played Ranevskaya in the 1930s, all in the same dress created by Nadezhda Petrovna. In support of this there is a photograph taken in 1932. In total, the dress from Lamanova lasted 40 years.

This dress for the role of Ranevskaya is captured on portrait by Nikolai Pavlovich Ulyanov, student of Valentin Alexandrovich Serov.

In 2016, a portrait of Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova was shown at the exhibition "Modeler whom Stanislavsky believed" in Moscow Fashion Museum and in Nizhny Novgorod Literary Museum. Gorky .

Used sources:
http://diletant.media/blogs/60920/675/
http://vadim-i-z.livejournal.com/1060229.html
http://teatr-lib.ru/Library/MAT_v_kritike/MAT_v_kritike_1919-1930/#_Toc272450594
https://studfiles.net/preview/4387373/page:11/
http://thelib.ru/books/vitaliy_vulf/50_velichayshih_zhenschin_kollekcionnoe_izdanie-read.html

K.S. Stanislavsky. A.P. Chekhov at the Art Theater (Memoirs).
In the book: A.P. Chekhov in the memoirs of contemporaries. Publishing house "Fiction", Moscow, 1960. P.410-411

The usual and seemingly traditional "The Cherry Orchard", based on the famous work of Chekhov, can be staged in different ways. The Sovremennik Theater team managed to find a solution and demonstrate a special reading of the play, highlighting their production against the background of many analogues.

Today, tickets for the Cherry Orchard remain in demand. Although it has been in the repertoire for many years, it remains sold out. Spectators of several generations go to it, they arrange family and collective trips.

About the history of the creation and success of the Cherry Orchard

The Cherry Orchard was first staged in 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre. Although many years have passed since then, the feelings, thoughts and experiences of the heroes of the play, their ridiculous and largely unsuccessful destinies still touch and excite every spectator who came to the performance, regardless of which stage it is staged on. The viewer has a lot of options.

The Cherry Orchard premiered in Sovremennik in 1997. It is no coincidence that Galina Volchek chose one of the most popular and unsolved plays by the genius of Russian prose. According to the director, at the end of the 20th century, the Chekhov theme turned out to be as relevant as it was for the author's contemporaries. Volchek, as usual, made the right choice.

- The performance, despite its programmatic basis, was applauded by Paris, Marseille and Berlin.

- The Daily News wrote about him with enthusiasm.

- It was he who opened the famous Broadway tour of Sovremennik in 1997.

- For them, the theater was awarded the National American Drama Desk Award.

Features of the performance Sovremennik

The Cherry Orchard directed by Galina Volchek is a bright and tragic story. In it, a hard look at the characters is inextricably intertwined with subtle and soft poetics. Awareness of the mercilessness of time and forever lost opportunities miraculously coexists with a vague hope for the best.

- G. Volchek managed to breathe new life into the textbook Chekhov's play, building a performance on the subtle play of halftones, showing in it an amazing unity of passing eras and human destinies.

- The cherry orchard itself in the play became an acting character. Heroes constantly peer into it as a symbol of the vanishing past with longing and bitterness.

It is impossible not to mention the interesting scenographic work of P. Kaplevich and P. Kirillov. They "grown" the garden and "erected" the house in an unusual constructivist style. The costumes impeccably sewn by V. Zaitsev completely fall into the era and into the mood of the viewer.

Actors and roles

In the first part of the performance, G. Volchek gathered the best forces of the Sovremennik troupe. The magnificent Marina Neelova in the role of Ranevskaya and Igor Kvasha, who brilliantly played Gaev, received an ovation from the audience at each performance. Today, 20 years after the premiere, the cast of The Cherry Orchard has undergone some changes.

- After the death of Kvasha, the baton of the role of Gaev was picked up by the Honored Artist of Russia V. Vetrov, and succeeded in it.

- Elena Yakovleva, who shone in the role of Varya, was replaced by Maria Anikanova, who conquers many viewers with her talents.

Olga Drozdova plays the governess Charlotte very well.

- The permanent performers of the main roles, Marina Neelova as Ranevskaya and Sergei Garmash as Lopatin, still amaze the audience with their inspired performance.

All the actors accurately convey the ageless wisdom and diligently expose the nerve of Chekhov's dramaturgy. By purchasing tickets for The Cherry Orchard at Sovremennik, you will be convinced that even familiar storylines can be conveyed to the viewer in a unique way.

A.P. Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard

Actors and performers:

• Ranevskaya Lyubov Andreevna, landowner -
• Anna, her daughter
• Varya, her adopted daughter -
• Gaev Leonid Andreevich, brother of Ranevskaya -
• Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich, merchant -
• Trofimov Petr Sergeevich, student -
• Simeonov-Pishchik Boris Borisovich, landowner -,
• Charlotte Ivanovna, governess -
• Epikhodov Semyon Panteleevich, clerk -

Sergei Baimukhametov

Gaidar robbed us, Chubais threw the whole country like the last sucker, and you hacks call them reformers!

That is how our meeting began 25 years ago, my classmate Sashka Zubarev, a former turner-borer of the sixth category from the once powerful Avangard defense plant. Since we are childhood friends, we yelled at each other without being offended.

It was us, the intelligentsia, who were let into the world! - I came. They gave us vouchers. And you, hard workers, got factories! You understand, for-in-dy!!!

I need this factory! Sasha shouted. - What am I going to do with him? Do you know that the director immediately surrounded the plant with some firms, cooperatives, and pumped all the money there?!

And where did you look, you are a shareholder, the owner?!

What kind of owner am I? These are your words from the newspapers. Yes, and I sold the shares a long time ago ... You sell everything when you don’t pay a salary for six months.

You see, you sold your shares cheaply to someone else's uncle, and now you're crying...

Yes, it's always easy for you to say! Sasha exploded. - You don't need to eat or drink, just to write your own, but we need to live. And what do we understand in these actions?!

It was then, 25 years ago, in the turner of the sixth category Sashka Zubarev, I saw ... a landowner, noblewoman Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. The one from Chekhov's great and mysterious play. I am not speaking out of love for paradoxes: in the early 90s of the last century, Soviet workers and peasants repeated the fate of Chekhov's nobles.

Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy, wrote to friends: “I did not come out with a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce ... The whole play is cheerful, frivolous ... The last act will be cheerful ... "

The luminaries of the Art Theater did not pay attention to the designation of the genre and staged a drama. According to the scheme "outgoing class - incoming class".

“Why is my play so stubbornly called a drama on posters and in newspaper ads? Chekhov complained in a letter to O.L. Knipper. - Nemirovich and Alekseev (Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky - S. B.) positively see in my play not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both have never read my play carefully ... ".

Stanislavsky objected: “This is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, it is a tragedy, no matter what outcome to a better life you open in the last act.”

Time has shown that Stanislavsky was right. But Chekhov was greatly mistaken. Sometimes the artist himself is not able to appreciate and understand what came out of his pen. In the same way, Cervantes conceived Don Quixote as ... a parody! Yes, yes, as a parody of chivalric novels. And it turned out what happened.

So Chekhov insisted on the comedy of The Cherry Orchard. Although, of all the characters, with some convention, only Gaev can be considered comedic, who answers Lopakhin’s reasonable proposals: “What nonsense!”, And on every occasion mutters about playing billiards: “Who? middle..."

In fact, there is nothing funny about it.

"The Cherry Orchard" fell into the dramatic nerve of time. Peasant, serf, feudal Russia became industrial, bourgeois, capitalist Russia. The way of life changed. And already quite revered people at meetings, in society - not only languid or violent descendants of ancient families, not rulers of thoughts - poets and historians, not well-born guards officers, but breeders, bankers, plebeians with big money, in tailcoats bursting on fat bodies , with the manners of yesterday's grooms, clerks or cheaters. "Pure" Russia recoiled. But money is money, and not just money, but the industrial and agricultural power behind it. "Pure" Russia frowned, disdained, but could no longer prevent the nouveaux riches from entering high society - almost on an equal footing. At the same time, the figures of the artistic and theatrical world, receiving considerable sums from merchants and industrialists for "holy art", did not hesitate to openly despise their patrons, mocked them, called them tit tityches.

And naturally, as a reaction to what is happening, nostalgic feelings for the past, for the fading "noble nests" flared up in society. From here in the theaters - “a beautiful cherry orchard”, “noble departure of the nobility”, Ranevskaya’s white dress ... At the same time, Bunin wrote the noble-nostalgic “Antonov apples”, about which one single critic dared to remark: “These apples smell by no means not democratic."

And in Soviet times, the artistic intelligentsia saw in the play only the “helpless and naive Ranevskaya”, “beautiful garden” and “rude capitalist Lopakhin”.

Yes, Yermolai Lopakhin was the most unlucky. They saw in him only the offensive of "his preposterousness of capital." One of the newspapers of the time called him a "fist-merchant". And again Chekhov protested in vain: “The role of Lopakhin is central, if it fails, then the play will fail. Lopakhin should not be played as a screamer, it is not necessary that it must necessarily be a merchant. This is a soft person."

Alas. The voice of one crying. Surprisingly, on the whole, the democratically minded press of that time, angrily condemning the recent shameful serfdom, nevertheless did not want to understand and accept Lopakhin, the grandson and son of a serf. Because he's rich. If he had been an orphan and miserable, begged for alms on the porch, hung around in taverns or robbed on the roads, they would have pitied him, they would have admired him, they would have seen him as a "victim of vile Russian reality." And the young, healthy and enterprising Russian peasant Yermolai Lopakhin was not needed by the then publicists, and even more so by aesthetic critics.

Yermolai's peasant origin did not save him in Soviet times either. Communist ideologists saw in Petya Trofimov, a loafer, a chatterer and a chatterbox, almost a herald of the future. And Lopakhin was a "capitalist".

In addition, the new, already Soviet aesthetes, who care about "spirituality", again and again began to repeat the accusations of "soulless pragmatism" that had already been made at the beginning of the century against Lopakhin - with "his project of renting a cherry orchard for profitable summer cottages."

And for some reason, neither then, nor today, it occurred to anyone that Lopakhin did not want to cut down the garden at all and “destroy the beauty” - he wanted to save people! This same Ranevskaya and this same Gaev. Because he remembered the accidental caress of the mistress Ranevskaya in childhood, when his father bled his face. For the rest of my life I remembered her kind words, consolation, and now, when the opportunity arose, I decided to repay kindness for kindness. Not about theories, not about "love of beauty", but about simple humanity, about the desire to help helpless people - that's what Lopakhin thinks about!

But Ermolai Lopakhin received the strongest blow already in new times, in the 90s of the last century, at the time of the Yeltsin-Gaidar-Chubais reforms, which were cursed by the turner-borer Sashka Zubarev. This time the journalistic essayists were not writing about “beauty” or “spirituality”, but were zealously blowing into the pipes of the “market economy”. Articles flashed in the newspapers, the authors of which proclaimed Lopakhin - who would you think? - the forerunner, the ancestor of the "new Russians". Hooray! Direct continuity of generations! Together we raise Russia!

But the essence is not in money - but in their origin.

Lopakhin is a natural manifestation of Russian life in the transitional period - from feudalism to capitalism. The father, having received “freedom”, started a business, the son continued: “I sowed a thousand acres of poppy seeds in the spring and now I have earned forty thousand net.”

Everything - with your mind and hump.

And the capital of the new Russians is a plundered national property. Moreover, the old party-Soviet bosses, the new democratic quick-hooks and eternal criminals in all times touchingly united in theft.

The Lopakhins were indeed creating a new Russia. And the current world-eaters can easily destroy it. Because they brazenly feast during the plague, in front of the robbed people. Why today, 28 years after the collapse of the USSR, two-thirds (according to polls of sociologists - 68%) of Russians want to return to the Soviet Union? Yes, the USSR is mainly idealized by those who do not know, have not experienced all its “charms”. It's not nostalgia, it's a myth. And it is even more difficult to deal with it, because the confessors of the myth practically do not perceive the voice of reason, the facts. Only after all, the idealization of the USSR did not arise from scratch. It began with the stories of the fathers, with their trampled sense of justice, the natural feeling of people deceived and offended.

Gaev and Ranevskaya could survive and even rise by renting out plots. Lopakhin offered them a hundred times. And in response I heard from Gaev: “Who? .. Doublet in the corner ... Croiset in the middle ...” Ranevskaya and Gaev are pale infirmities, people who are incapable of anything, their self-preservation instinct has degenerated.

Modern Lopakhins at the very beginning of economic reforms offered the workers a hundred times: “Understand, legally you are the owners of the factories, let’s switch to the production of other products that will be bought before it’s too late!” And in response they heard: “Let the director decide, what are we. Only the director doesn't itch." The Lopakhins convinced: “But you are the owners, choose an intelligent director for yourself!” The workers, exchanging glances, decided: “Let's go have a beer, why sit in vain. There's nothing to do anyway." That is the same. Typical gays on a mass scale: "Who?.. Doublet in the corner ... Croiset in the middle ..."

And then the modern Lopakhins retreated. Everyone muttered to himself, like that Chekhovian Lopakhin: “I will either sob, or scream, or faint. I can not..."

And they left. The fate of factories, factories, workers is now known. The fortunes of directors, former ministers, nimble talkers-democrats and other privatizers are also known.

I repeat, not out of love for paradoxes: in the early 90s of the last century, Soviet workers and peasants repeated the fate of Chekhov's nobles. Centuries of dependency led to the genetic degeneration of the individuals that made up the nobility. The same with the eternal hard workers - workers and peasants. Soviet decades of social dependency, when everything was decided for them, led them to the same.

As a result - a weakened will, unwillingness to think about oneself and one's destiny, inability to make decisions. The desire to hide, get away from problems, incomprehensible conversations. A typical Ranevsko-Gaevsky complex. Anemia.

The caustic, bilious man Bunin, who considered all Chekhov's plays far-fetched and weak, sarcastically remarked about the actual life, real basis of the plot: “What a landlord, a landowner, will plant a huge garden with cherries. This has never happened before!”

Bunin meant that it was absurd to plant cherries all over the garden; in manor estates, cherry trees were only part of the garden. However, let's take Chekhov's cherry orchard as a separate, special case that has become a symbol.

But if we continue Bunin's parallels, then not a single normal person will "plant" such a thing as a socialist economy. However, she existed. On the vast expanses of countries and peoples. And these gigantic plants of little use, collective farms and state farms, which do not pay for themselves, are remembered and dear to many people as part of their life, their youth. In the same way as the unfortunate Ranevskaya was dear to her cherry orchard: unprofitable, bearing fruit every two years. Lopakhin said: “The remarkable thing about this garden is that it is very large. Cherry is born every two years, and even that has nowhere to go, no one buys.

History cannot be skipped. She turned out the way she did. But still, people could decide something and turn it their own way. And they probably still can. Those same turners, bakers and plowmen. Especially when you consider that the Lopakhins, Morozovs, Mamontovs did not fall from the sky to us at one time, but came from the same workers and peasants.

It is clear and natural that we are talking about us and about us. For any reason or another.

Let's just keep in mind that the "Cherry Orchard" is a world phenomenon and a world mystery. It seems that this drama is not just Russian, but exclusively Russian. Even we are not at all clear, misunderstood and not fully unraveled. And what can we say about foreigners. For example, who among them, who knows little about our serfdom, will understand the muttering of lackey Firs:

“Before the misfortune, it was also: the owl screamed, and the samovar buzzed endlessly.”

Gaev asks him: “Before what misfortune?”

Firs replies: "Before the will."

Yes, we can assume that this is the voice of a slavish soul, for which freedom and will are a misfortune. But isn't such an answer not enough for the world popularity of the play. We know that Firs may have had something completely different in mind: what the abolition of serfdom turned out to be for the peasants when they were left without land, with heavy redemption payments, when the serfs rebelled against ... the abolition of serfdom. But foreigners do not know about it. And about other exclusively Russian plots of the play - too. But for some reason they put on The Cherry Orchard - in all countries and on all continents. 102 years ago it premiered in German at the New Vienna Theatre, 100 years ago at the Berlin Volkstheatre. It would seem that even Hamlet asked: “What is he Hecuba? What is Hecuba to him?

What is Ranevskaya's cry to them?

However, no. The Cherry Orchard is still the most famous work of Russian dramaturgy in the world.

In the photo: Danila Kozlovsky as Lopakhin in the performance of the Maly Drama Theater of St. Petersburg