What: Park Avenue Armory hosts the North American premiere of Chekhov's classic, as adapted by Simon Stone. This production moves the story from Russia to Seoul, South Korea.
And? It's very visually striking (props to scenic designer Saul Kim), and I really appreciate the pared-down adaptation. I don't often have much patience for Chekhov, but this version worked well for me. It's a compelling study of nostalgia versus naked ambition, of stubborn denial versus practicality and cynicism, and of course of the changing mentalities around class structure. The cast is very strong, particularly Jeon Do-yeon as the dreamy and brittle Song Do-young (Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya) and Park Hae-soo as her foil, the practical and passionate Hwang Doo-sik (Yermolai Alexeievitch Lopakhin). As with Simon Stone's production of Yerma, this show faces a few aural challenges by placing its cast behind glass walls for so much of the show. They're all clearly miked, but the sound mix offers no assistance in locational listening: many times I wouldn't realize the primary dialogue scene had moved to a different room, because the sound was all coming from the same place. This, coupled with the need to read the supertitles, made following some scenes a particular challenge, especially early on and with overlapping scenes. I'm still very glad I saw it--some excellent work here.
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| The cast of The Cherry Orchard. Photo by Studio AL, LG Arts Center. |
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