Sometimes an imperfect show can be more memorable than a more competent but less interesting one. I didn’t find Benedict Andrews’ recent production of The Cherry Orchard to be an unqualified success, but a week later I’m still carrying around some of its most powerful moments.
No traditional stage here, just a monumental brick-colored oriental carpet stretching across the entire performance space, even climbing the back wall. The audience sat around this shared space and, sitting in the front row, I found my feet resting on the rug’s edge.
As I waited for the play to begin, I noticed a young man in bare feet seated across from me. He looked like a fairly typical Brooklyn theatergoer, but the bare feet struck me as a step too far. Then I looked more closely: it was Daniel Monks, who played Kostya in Jamie Lloyd’s Seagull. Of course: he must be playing Trofimov. Monks seems to be specializing in Chekhov’s disaffected young men.
I didn’t recognize the rest of the cast at first, dressed much like the Brooklyn audience—not even Anya and Yepikhodov seated next to me. In fact, when the buffoonish Yepikhodov made his entrance by violently knocking over his chair, I jumped, afraid an audience member had fallen.
The contemporary staging and costuming gesture toward the original while never fully embracing pre-revolutionary Russia or any other recognizable time and place. I complained a year ago about the unrootedness of Steve Carell’s Uncle Vanya. Why does it work so much better here?
