WTF masters a masterpiece

By Ralph HammannPrint Story | Email Story
“The Cherry Orchard” By Anton Chekhov Directed by Michael Greif Williamstown Theatre Festival, through Aug. 22 WILLIAMSTOWN — One of my favorite Nikos Psacharopoulos stories concerns the cigarette butt that Nikos, in his early days as artistic director, found on the steps in front of the Adams Memorial Theatre’s Greek columns and portico. The Greek impresario made an issue of the incident to the general manager (according to Steve Lawson, Nikos said, “One cigarette — it grows to100!”), and I have always imagined what it must have looked like as Nikos stood before the Ionic columns and railed against the despoiling of his temple. Thereafter, no cigarette butts were to be found at the WTF. Such memories will doubtless fade with time after the columns fall, victims of the new construction that is destroying the classic architecture and subsuming the old AMT into the modern behemoth that mocks the neighboring architecture that remains. A link to Williamstown’s history, which also harkens to the roots of Western theater, is about to vanish forever, and the phantom of Nikos will have to find another haunt. Yet another venerable sight will give way to the cold modernization that, in the dubious name of progress, has already claimed other charms in this once bucolic town. Thus, it is fitting that “The Cherry Orchard,” which ruefully looks at the passing of a social order and tradition, should be the last play performed at the AMT. Chekhov’s orchard is a symbol of the landed gentry, a refined class valuing culture, the arts, tradition and leisure. Like other effective symbols, it is something more, a tangible thing of beauty that is the product of a successful collaboration between civilization and nature — one of the gentry’s lovely fruits, a gift to the countryside. Chekhov was writing about Russian history as it unfolded. The aristocracy was falling to the new middle class that emerged from the ranks of peasants and serfs. In “The Cherry Orchard,” he offers a complex, deeply humanistic look at the movement and is at once critical and understanding of the old and the new. It is his ability to find humor and pathos, if not tragedy, in both groups that makes him eternally important. The action of the play seems as simple as the character’s names are complex. The Gáyev estate belonging to Liubóv and Leoníd (sister and brother) is about to be put to auction, as the owners can no longer pay their taxes, let alone the servants. They are urged by Lopákhin, a wealthy businessman, to cut down their cherry orchard and subdivide their land so they can sell it at great profit before it goes to auction. Because they are romantics and can’t part with the past (or destroy beauty), they do nothing but idle away precious time with talk and music as they try to maintain the status quo against the inevitable encroachment of harsh reality. They lose virtually everything. Also on hand are Ánya and Várya, Liubóv’s daughter and adopted daughter; Pétya, a serious student attracted to the vivacious Ánya; Dunyásha, a pert maid; Yásha, an impertinent valet who detests his station in life; Firs, an ancient butler who is pertinacious in his reverence of tradition and the gentry; Carlotta, an imperturbable governess; and Borís, an importuning landowner of insufficient financial means. As with so much of Chekhov, the surface is deceptive; everything is behavioral and depends on discovering the subtext. It requires a great cast and masterful director. That Michael Greif should have the privilege of directing the last WTF production in the Adams Memorial Theatre initially struck me as unfair. I haven’t been a fan of his productions (“Landscape of the Body,” “Street Scene,” “Once in a Lifetime”) during his six seasons here. Essentially, I have disparaged Greif as an artist since panning his main stage debut with Chekhov’s “Sea Gull.” How spectacularly ironic then, that Greif should direct a defining production of “The Cherry Orchard,” the best I’ve seen or hope to see. His concept is brilliant, and he has applied it with rigorous skill. What initially seems to be a bold interpretation of the play eventually becomes one that seems inevitably right — one that has a Beckettian sense of time as a great, absurd ravager and a Stanislavskian sense of the tragedy underlying what Chekhov claimed was a comedy. To be sure, the laughter is plentiful, but Greif balances it exquisitely against the other elements. He presents the play theatrically, emphasizing the theater’s proscenium, lights and wings (a bit of scenic legerdemain here). Greif has employed this approach before, but never so adroitly. The production becomes as much a meditation on the ephemeral quality of theater as it is about the transience of social classes, values and cherry orchards. Indeed, the first image we have is that of a man seemingly dreaming or lost in memory as he is dwarfed by his own outsized shadow on the theater’s cyclorama. One first wonders if this represents Chekhov wistfully looking back on the past and his part in immortalizing it in the theater. We then realize that it is Lopákhin, the businessman, who urges the Gáyevs to save themselves by embracing progress and business. By according Lopákhin center stage importance, a place usually reserved for Liubóv and Leoníd, Greif effectively deepens the play’s tragic elements. During much of the first act, birdsongs seem almost as dominant as the dialogue, but just as one is ready to complain about the apparent avian distraction, one finds himself ready to eat crow. Lovely, light and harmless, the birds’ twittering wryly parallels and underscores the foolish, inconsequential chirping of maids and leisured twits. And when something of more consequence is said, the birds slyly abate. Subtly achieved, the effect also contributes to the environment, where manicured nature dominates upstage. Some productions never attempt to show the cherry orchard; others fail at capturing its beauty. Greif rolls out a lush row of trees in blossom that poetically stand in for the entire orchard. It is done unsentimentally, with utter simplicity, and the effect is completely moving as designed by Allen Moyer. In another clever manipulation of the material, Greif and Moyer relocate the second act from an abandoned chapel to the encroaching railroad tracks that dramatically traverse the stage. In a study of linear movement, there is also represented a river (downstage) and a fence (midstage) that nearly blot the view of the upstage row of cherry trees. The image is that of a progression across the stage, of arrival and departure, of change. The sense is of waiting, of time momentarily forestalled. Railroad tracks always suggest time. The third act is highlighted by a grand theatrical drape that defines the drawing room outside the Gáyevs' ballroom. Again, there is a sense of the impermanence of theater. And in the dramatic shift to the fourth act, the true villain of the piece, Time, makes its heightened entrance, introduced by the loud gears of some great clock. This eventually gives way to clockwork chopping offstage when time finally overtakes the Gáyevs and their beloved orchard. Throughout, Greif imbues the play with a feeling of the inexorable machine of tragedy, as Jean Anouilh memorably described it in his “Antigone.” The spring is wound tight, the gears are oiled and we have but to wait. However calamitous, the effect is actually rather restful. Greif has constructed such a machine, in which sound, lighting, settings and staging are all unified in an extremely clean, rich evocative vision. The transitions are terrific as stage pieces and equipment elegantly float, roll or unfold to redefine the space. But all would evaporate without a cast to ground us to this play in which little dramatic action actually occurs onstage. In choosing Linda Emond, an actress of subtle means, to play Liubóv, Greif ensures that the potentially florid role will not be overdone. Here we have an elegant Liubóv, to be sure, but not one who controls the stage whenever she enters. This is, after all, a play in which control is being lost. In Reed Birney’s sadly comic Leoníd, we may have a character of less depth than, say, Alan Bate’s wonderful interpretation on film, but we get a delightful fool who can harm no one save himself and a character of such featherheaded lightness that we want to return the poor nestling to safety. Michelle Williams proves her stage legs as she conveys the uncomfortable stiffness that Várya’s nervousness and propriety force on her. Apparently divested of any clothing that isn’t black, she hides her beauty in a cloistered life, and there is a poignant blend of humor and the pathos of unrealized potential in Williams’ portrayal. In contrast, Jessica Chastain brings a radiance to the lovely Ánya that carries its own sting of sorrow when one realizes that she will waste away in the sterile arms of Pétya, who doesn’t believe in love. In that role, Chris Messina suggests something of the earnestness and appealing awkwardness that Austin Pendleton used to bring to his portrayals of students in the early days of Chekhov at the WTF. And as Dunyásha, Jessica Stone pleasantly reminds one of Laurie Kennedy in Nikos’ “Cherry Orchard.” Ritchie Coster is a total original in his revelatory performance of Lopákhin. Greif’s masterstroke was to cast this extraordinary actor and to place greater emphasis on his complicated businessman. It’s not that Coster upstages anyone. And it’s not that Liubóv and Leoníd are given short shrift. It’s just that Coster is so damned fascinating that one is compelled to watch him live moment-to-moment as he peels away the complex layers of the role. It’s a shift that re-enlivens the play, giving it new edges. Coster’s Lopákhin suffers almost majestically as he tries to save the Gáyevs from the very forces of change that he represents. Seeming as uncomfortable in his own skin as he does in the changing social milieu, Coster reveals a Lopákhin who has a love/hate relationship with Gáyevs. He genuinely cares for them but is angered at their inability to care for themselves. He finds their generosity noble but extravagantly foolish. He admires their style and resents the fact that his forebears were their servants. Coster excels, however, at excavating Lopákhin’s self-division. He juggles giddy awe, self-loathing, triumphal revenge and self-doubt — and the painful conflict manifests itself in his struggles to find his footing and to formulate words to express himself. Imagine Christopher Walken without the annoying self-indulgences, De Niro without the recent flabbiness, Brando at his most searching, Pacino at his most introspective or Montgomery Clift at his most self-effacingly spontaneous, and you’ve a rough idea. This is the first time I have actually been moved by “The Cherry Orchard.” For me, this is a production that restores it to its rightful place as an equal to Chekhov’s other three masterworks. After the play, the last one I’ll see at the Adams Memorial Theatre, I find myself standing on the lawn and looking at the portico and columns. Adjacent is the dwarfing new structure, its exterior looking more like a linoleum fake than genuine stone. I remember the grand shade trees that used to stand in the vicinity. The last of the patrons walk through the AMT’s columns and depart into the balmy night. One fellow, an adult member of this season’s PR staff, stands in the floodlights smoking a cigarette. He finishes it and tosses it onto the ground. An era passes. Ralph Hammann is The Advocate’s chief theater critic.
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Friends of Great Barrington Libraries Holiday Book Sale

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The Friends of Great Barrington Libraries invite the community to shop their annual Holiday Good-as-New Book Sale, happening now through the end of the year at the Mason Library, 231 Main Street. 
 
With hundreds of curated gently used books to choose from—fiction, nonfiction, children's favorites, gift-quality selections, cookbooks, and more—it's the perfect local stop for holiday gifting.
 
This year's sale is an addition to the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce's Holiday Stroll on this Saturday, Dec. 13, 3–8 PM. Visitors can swing by the Mason Library for early parking, browse the sale until 3:00 PM, then meet Pete the Cat on the front lawn before heading downtown for the Stroll's shopping, music, and festive eats.
 
Can't make the Holiday Stroll? The book sale is open during regular Mason Library hours throughout December.
 
Proceeds support free library programming and events for all ages.
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