pumpkinstrokemarrow

Off to the National Theatre yesterday to see 'The Cherry Orchard', the first time we have been to this theatre for a while. Picnicked on arrival on a piece of astro turf which was complete with an astro turfed model three piece suite, complete with standard lamp. Interesting tourists to go with it. My share of the picnic was a few slices of the new to me wholemeal bread, half of which had passed through a water mill prior to passing through me.

Good set and generally good cast (of 22 according to my count at the end), but the show as a whole seemed a bit heavy, particularly the first half. And far too long at 3 hours including the interval. Chekhov might be melancholy, but it should be done with a lighter touch than the NT managed. Observation should be more ambivalent and less judgemental. The production of Uncle Vanya which we saw at both Kingston and Guildford was much better in this regard (see March 30, 2008).

Audience rather more dowdy than that at the RFH the day before. Why would this be?

The adaptation, while sticking to the story, seemed a little heavy at times. A tendency to work background information into the dialogue, presumably intended for the benefit of audiences who may know little of Russia at around 1900. The program, which we almost bought, also appeared to include plenty of educational material which would have done credit to something from the Open University. And I noticed some apparently minor tweaks which rather went against the grain of what I think Chekhov was driving at. I wonder whether the adaptor was able to work from the Russian original, or whether he was working off a Penguin Classic? Perhaps he was more used to doing adaptations for television. Our own water damaged copy came from Chatto & Windus back in 1928, a time when my father was a sprightly 18 years old and well before I was thought of.

Zoë Wanamaker was rather too competent and forceful to be very convincing as Madame Ranevsky. Yasha - granted not intended to be a very attractive person - irritated. Semyonov-Pichtchik and Charlotta good fun. Some regional accents in evidence: presumably they have these in Russia, just as we do. It is a fairly large country.

The thought I came away with was how it easy it was for generally well intentioned and kindly people to cause accidental damage to those around them. Part of this was the ease & frequency with which groups of people converse on non-intersecting parallel lines, a theme Aldous Huxley was keen on in one of his books of maybe 30 years later.

PS: I was told later that I saw Dame Judi leading in the play some years ago, somewhere in the West End. A performance of which I have no memory, but that is not at all impossible these days, irritating though it might be. However, on checking with the indefatigable Mr. Google, I learned that there is no such performance. All he can offer is Dane Judi playing a subordinate role many years ago and the lead for telly in 1980. So it must have been somebody else. Which is a pity as I think she would have been rather better at it than Zoë Wanamaker.