Diane Lane has never looked so beautiful. When she enters the set in a long off-white fur coat, chestnut hair shining, tears of happiness glistening in her eyes, the audience fairly gasps. As Lyubov Ranevskaya, she is the definition of glamour. Lyubov’s clothing is exquisite, largely because as she admits, she spends money like a madwoman. She’s just arrived from Paris to meet with her family, relive memories both joyous and painful, and say goodbye — maybe — to her beloved childhood country home. But this now nearly impoverished noblewoman refuses to accept the truth. There is no money to pay the mortgage, and the house, with the beloved cherry orchard outside, is to be sold at auction. Her brother Leonid (John Glover) is even more feckless. He swans around in a long brocade coat, apparently doing nothing but making references to his billiard prowess. They are greeted by Lyubov’s adopted daughter Varya (Celia Keenan-Bolger), who runs the house and tries to keep the servants toeing the line. Most loyal is the ancient Firs (Joel Grey), who apparently still feels it’s his duty to help Leonid dress and undress. He fusses over whether or not his charge is garbed warmly enough and reminisces about the good old days. (It’s hard not to hear echoes of the fawningly worshipful dialogue from Mel Brooks’s The Twelve Chairs.) Even getting whipped is a happy memory of time Firs spent with his adored master. As their world is falling down around their ankles, Lyubov and Leonid fail to heed the warning of their friend, Yermolai Alekseyevich Lopakhin, who councils them to break up the property and build cottages they could lease. This would save the house and the family, but at the cost of chopping down the cherry orchard. The brother and sister won’t hear of it and cling to the notion that somehow a miracle will save them from an all-too-obvious fate. It’s expected that Yermolai will marry Varya, whom he has always fancied. And then, there’s that great aunt who is very rich, and who may respond to the begging for funds if Lyubov’s young daughter Anya (Tavi Gevinson) does the pleading; she’s the only member of the family that the matriarch doesn’t despise. This is a family of never-gonna-grow-up spoiled rich kids. Something always turns up to keep them thinking whatever they do, it’ll all be okay, because — this I can tell you — they’re special. Except it doesn’t. The system is as rigged as ever, but their day has passed. There is certainly an attempt to correlate the underlying agitation of a society that desperately needs to change. But throwing in a couple of modern anachronistic terms, like “Are you kidding me?” and “homeless person” doesn’t really help solidify the link between past and present; it’s still just a lot of dialogue. And in Chekov, there’s no way any of the characters will, as Anya advises her uncle, “Speak less.” All through Act Two, there’s a distinct ding-ding-ding which never lets up. It proves extremely annoying and makes me wonder what possible connection it has to the play. Does it somehow connect to the fact that the second half of the show begins with a masquerade ball, segued into modern dress, and ends with Joel Grey apparently breathing his last on the once plush, now mangy, carpet? Does it correlate with the word “serf” being replaced by “slave,” although “ruble” isn’t now “bucks,” and there’s still a samovar, not a Nespresso? “Maybe,” my companion mused, “It represents the interminable elevator of Life.” Yep, works for me.
