The play "The Cherry Orchard" (1903) is the last work of A.P. Chekhov, completing his creative biography.

The action of the play, as the author reports with the very first remark, takes place on the estate of the landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, on an estate with a cherry orchard, surrounded by poplars, with a long avenue that "goes straight, straight, like an outstretched belt" and "glistens on moonlit nights."

Ranevskaya and her brother Leonid Andreevich Gaev are the owners of the estate. But they brought him with their frivolity, complete misunderstanding real life to a pitiful state: it is to be sold at auction. The rich peasant son, the merchant Lopakhin, a family friend, warns the owners about the impending catastrophe, offers them his projects of salvation, urges them to think about the impending disaster. But Ranevskaya and Gaev live in illusory representations. Gaev rushes about with fantastic projects. Both of them shed many tears over the loss of their cherry orchard, without which they think they cannot live. But things go on as usual, auctions take place, and Lopakhin buys the estate himself. When the trouble happened, it turns out that there seems to be no special drama for Ranevskaya and Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna returns to Paris, to her ridiculous "love", to which she would have returned anyway, despite all her words that she cannot live without a homeland. Leonid Andreevich also comes to terms with what happened. The “terrible drama” does not turn out to be so difficult for its heroes for the simple reason that they cannot have anything serious at all, nothing dramatic. Such is the comedic, satirical basis of the play.

An interesting way in which Chekhov emphasized the illusory, frivolous world of Gaev-Ranev-

sky. He surrounds these central characters of the comedy with characters that reflect the comic worthlessness of the main figures. The figures of Charlotte, the clerk Epikhodov, the lackey Yasha, the maid Dunyasha are caricatures of the "gentlemen".

In the lonely, absurd, unnecessary fate of Charlotte Ivanovna's hanger-on, there is a resemblance to the absurd, unnecessary fate of Ranevskaya. Both of them treat themselves as something incomprehensible, unnecessary, strange, and both life seems foggy, unclear, some kind of ghostly. Like Charlotte, Ranevskaya also "everything seems to be young," and Ranevskaya lives like a host during her lifetime, not understanding anything about her.

The buffoon figure of Epikhodov is remarkable. With his "twenty-two misfortunes" he is also a caricature - both of Gaev, and of the landowner Simeon-va-Pishchik, and even of Petya Trofimov. Epikhodov is a "clunker", using old Firs's favorite proverb. One of Chekhov's contemporary critics correctly pointed out that "The Cherry Orchard" is "a play of klutzes." Epikhodov concentrates this theme of the play in himself. He is the soul of all "nonsense". After all, both Gaev and Simeonov-Pishchik also have constant “twenty-two misfortunes”; like Epikhodov, nothing comes out of all their intentions, comical failures follow at every step.

Simeonov-Pishchik, who is constantly on the verge of complete bankruptcy and, out of breath, running around all his acquaintances asking for a loan, also represents "twenty-two misfortunes." Boris Borisovich is a man "living on credit", as Petya Trofimov says about Gaev and Ranevskaya; these people live at someone else's expense - at the expense of the people.

Petya Trofimov does not belong to the number of advanced, skillful, strong fighters for the future happiness. In all his appearance, one can feel the contradiction between the strength, scope of the dream and the weakness of the dreamer, which is characteristic of some Chekhov's heroes. " Eternal student”,“ shabby gentleman ”, Petya Trofimov is clean, sweet, but eccentric and not strong enough for a great struggle. It has the features of "non-warmth" that are common to almost all the characters in this play. But everything that he says to Anya is dear and close to Chekhov.

Anna is only seventeen years old. And youth for Chekhov is not only a biographical age sign. He wrote: "... That youth can be taken healthy, which does not put up with the old order and stupidly or cleverly fights against them - this is how nature wants and progress is based on this."

Chekhov does not have "villains" and "angels", he does not even distinguish between heroes into positive and negative. In his works, very often there are "good bad" characters. Such principles of typology, unusual for the former dramaturgy, lead to the appearance in the play of characters that combine contradictory, moreover, mutually exclusive features and properties.

Ranevskaya is impractical, selfish, she is petty and went in her love interest, but she is also kind, sympathetic, her sense of beauty does not fade. Lopakhin sincerely wants to help Ranevskaya, expresses genuine sympathy for her, shares her passion for the beauty of the cherry orchard. Chekhov emphasized in letters related to the production of The Cherry Orchard: “The role of Lopakhin is central ... After all, this is not a merchant in the vulgar sense of the word ... This is a gentle person ... a decent person in every sense, he must behave quite decently, intelligently , not small, without tricks. But this soft man is a predator. Petya Trofimov explains to Lopakhin his life's purpose in this way: "That's how, in terms of metabolism, a predatory beast is needed, which eats everything that comes in its way, so you are needed." And this soft, decent, intelligent person"eats" the cherry orchard...

The Cherry Orchard appears in the play and is the personification of the beautiful creative life, and the "judge" of the characters. Their attitude to the garden as to the highest beauty and purposefulness - this is the author's measure of the moral dignity of this or that hero.

Ranevskaya is not given to save the garden from destruction, and not because she was unable to turn the cherry orchard into a commercial, profitable one, as it was 40-50 years ago ... Her spiritual strength, energy was absorbed by love passion, drowning out her natural responsiveness on the joys and troubles of those around her, making her indifferent both to the final fate of the cherry orchard and to the fate of loved ones. Ranevskaya turned out to be below the idea of ​​the Cherry Orchard, she betrays her.

This is precisely the meaning of her confession that she cannot live without the person who left her in Paris: not a garden, not an estate, the focus of her innermost thoughts, hopes and aspirations. Does not rise to the idea of ​​the Cherry Orchard and Lopakhin. He sympathizes and worries, but he is only concerned about the fate of the owner of the garden, while the cherry orchard itself is doomed to death in the plans of the entrepreneur. It is Lopakhin who brings to its logical conclusion the action that develops in its climactic inconsistency: “Silence sets in, and you can only hear how far in the garden they knock on wood with an axe.”

I.A. Bunin blamed Chekhov for his "Cherry Orchard", since in Russia there were no orchards entirely of cherry trees, but were mixed. But Chekhov's garden- not a concrete reality, but a symbol of a fleeting and at the same time eternal life. His garden is one of the most complex symbols of Russian literature. The modest radiance of cherry blossoms is a symbol of youth and beauty; Describing in one of the stories a bride in a wedding dress, Chekhov compared her to a cherry tree in blossom. The cherry tree is a symbol of beauty, kindness, humanity, confidence in tomorrow; this symbol contains only a positive meaning and does not have any negative meanings.

Chekhov's symbols have been transformed ancient genre comedy; it had to be staged, played and viewed in a completely different way than the comedies of Shakespeare, Moliere or Fonvizin were staged.

The Cherry Orchard in this play is least of all a decoration against which the characters philosophize, dream, and quarrel. The garden is the personification of the value and meaning of life on earth, where each new day branches off from the past, like young shoots coming from old trunks and roots.

Ksenia GUSAROVA,
11th grade
gymnasium No. 1514(52)
(teacher - M.M. Belfer)

Outline of the essay

The Cherry Orchard- image, symbol, character

Ch ekhov - the creator of the so-called " new drama”, characterized by the novelty of the conflict, the rejection of external intrigue, the combination of dramatic, comic and lyrical principles, big role subtext created by the author's remarks, pauses, pictures of nature - "undercurrent". Although the writer himself, obviously, sought to achieve maximum realism in his plays (“Let everything be the same on stage ... as in life”), there is an opinion that it was through Chekhov that Meyerhold came to his conditional theater.

As you know, “The Cherry Orchard” is the result of Chekhov’s creative path, his last word addressed to the reader, a word about how imperceptibly for anyone the inner drama of a person who is unable to “fit in” in life is being accomplished. The main problem raised in The Cherry Orchard is the problem of duty, responsibility, the question of the fate of the Motherland.

The characters in Chekhov's plays are not just heroes, but heroes in time and space.

The cherry orchard, which is both the background of the action, and the character, and a comprehensive symbol, can be viewed in three main aspects: the garden is an image and character, the garden is time and the garden is symbolic spaces.

Animated and spiritualized (poeticized by Chekhov and idealized by the characters associated with him), the garden, no doubt, is one of the characters in the play. It takes its place in the system of images.

The garden is given simultaneously as an accusation (emphasizes irresponsibility, unkindness) and justification (a sense of beauty, keeping traditions, memory) of all other heroes.

The garden is playing passive role. Let us recall Chekhov's judgment: "It is better to be a victim than an executioner." Obviously, the victim garden is the only positive character in the play.

The garden sets the upper moral plane (what is the norm for Chekhov, but for his heroes, due to the distortion of the world order and their own inferiority, becomes the ideal), just as Yasha, a complete boor, sets the lower one. There is no vertical line that should connect them. Therefore, all the rest characters are in between, in the middle (“average” people), as if frozen in free fall, not touching any of the planes (they deviated from the norm, but did not sink completely), but reflecting them and being reflected in them - hence the ambiguity, the versatility of images.

Gaev is inextricably linked with the garden. But the nature of this connection cannot be unequivocally interpreted. On the one hand, Gaev is one of the most irresponsible heroes of the play, he “ate all his fortune on candies”, and to a greater extent, the blame for the death of the garden lies with him. On the other hand, to the last, in a quixotic naivete and to no avail, he tries to save the garden.

Ranevskaya is connected with the garden by a kind of “multiple mutual belonging effect”: Ranevskaya is the protagonist of Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard, that is, she belongs to The Cherry Orchard; the cherry orchard is located on the estate of Ranevskaya, therefore, belongs to her; Ranevskaya is in captivity at the image of the garden she created and thus belongs to him; the garden, as an image and symbol of the “sweet past”, exists in the imagination of Ranevskaya, which means it belongs to her ...

You can interpret Ranevskaya as the soul of the garden. This idea is suggested, in particular, by observations of temperature in its direct and figurative-artistic meaning - before the arrival of Ranevskaya, the theme of cold is repeated many times (in Chekhov's remarks and replicas of the heroes): “it's cold in the garden”, “it's a matinee now, frost is three degrees ”, “everything went cold” and so on; with the arrival of Ranevskaya, the cherry orchard and the house warm up, and after the sale of the garden it gets cold again: “just now it’s cold”, again “three degrees below zero”. In addition, the motif of the “broken thermometer” appears (a sign of the lack of a sense of proportion and the impossibility of returning to the old life).

For Lopakhin, the garden is a double symbol. This is an attribute of the nobility, where he, the peasant, “with a pig's snout”, is blocked from going (the social subtext is far from being the main thing in the play, but it is important), and the spiritual elite, where he is just as hopelessly striving (“read a book and fell asleep”).

The dual nature of Lopakhin - a merchant-artist - gives rise to a complex, a feeling of his own incompleteness (Lopakhin is far from Trofimov’s cold philosophizing: “your father was a peasant, mine is a pharmacist, and absolutely nothing follows from this”), which in turn gives rise to a subconscious desire for owning a cherry orchard.

Everyone noted a paradox: in an effort to make the garden “rich, luxurious, happy”, Lopakhin cuts it down.

Conclusion: Lopakhin, having bought a garden, believes that he “conquered” it; intoxicated with the consciousness of victory, he does not understand that he himself is subdued (this idea is partly confirmed by what happened to Lopakhin at the auction: “it got muddled in the head”; excitement is an instinct, that is, an animal, natural). Consequently, the garden puts pressure on Lopakhin, determines his life.

The garden is a symbol of the happiness of future generations: “our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here”, but at the same time it is an obstacle to this (the garden ties all its “inhabitants” to one place, serves as a kind of pretext for their doing nothing).

The garden can be regarded as Lopakhin's curse: the repeated mention of fathers and grandfathers is generic; the theme of serfdom associated with the garden; already mentioned motive of spontaneity, fatality.

For Varya, saving the garden is the only goal that has turned into an obsession. She sacrificed her personal life, "private secret" to the garden. She has an authoritarian mind. Its sacrifice is useless (parallel: Sonya in “War and Peace”: “it will be taken away from the poor”). The epithet “poor” applied to her has a triple meaning: poor, unhappy, not rich spiritually. Working for the sake of the garden, Varya gradually changes the goal and the means in places (shifting the emphasis from the word “garden” to the word “work”). She works out of habit - without meaning and purpose. Work fills the spiritual void. Varya is deprived of the garden for excessive devotion to him.

Firs - ancient as a garden, warmed by the arrival of Ranevskaya, perishes under the sound of an ax. Firs is an integral part of the garden.

Anya's personality is formed under the influence of Ranevskaya and Trofimov, hence the ambivalent attitude towards the garden, approaching Trofimov's: "I no longer love the cherry orchard, as before." Loves the garden as a memory of childhood and as a hope for a new life, the theme “we will plant a new garden” is an attempt to combine these two “loves”.

Trofimov's denial, the rejection of the garden - an attempt at a sober assessment. This assessment has both pluses and minuses: on the one hand, Chekhov often trusts Petya to express his thoughts, on the other hand, Trofimov, a dependent reasoner, a comic figure, this reduces everything he says by an order of magnitude.

The garden is given in time and outside of time (metaphysical). In time, the garden exists in three time planes: past, present and future. The garden-past is a visible image of serfdom (“human beings look at you from every leaf”); the memory of youth, a better life and a hopeless desire to return them. The garden that connects memory and aspiration is a shaky bridge thrown from the past to the future. The present tense of the garden is one with space (chronotope). The garden is also a symbol silver age” as eras: rise and fall at the same time, characteristic colors. The image of a garden, in particular, a cherry one, is often found in the poetry of the “Silver Age” (literary critics especially often note Akhmatova). One can argue about the future of the garden. There is a “Lopakhinsky” option: to cut down a garden and build dachas, it is achievable, but, according to Chekhov, this is not the future. There is an idealized garden of Trofimov and Anya - good, but not available. And there is a future on an all-Russian scale, where a new garden will inevitably be planted, the only question is what it will be like.

Understanding the space of a garden is most simple (ordinary garden) and complex at the same time. The garden is also a space of mood (contributes to the creation of an “undercurrent”). The garden combines the lyrical and epic beginnings.

A garden, taken as a moral ideal, can also be taken as an ideal space. Thus, there is a symbolic parallel “Cherry Orchard-Eden” and the theme of expulsion from paradise. But the sins of Ranevskaya, in which she repents to Lopakhin, are not those sins.

Conclusion: not to do good, according to Chekhov, is almost more sinful than to do evil.

The space of the cherry orchard is universal, since it unites all the actors of the play (at least outwardly), Chekhov and all his readers, that is, a higher, metaphysical plane is created.

Finally, the metaphor “garden-Russia” is obvious.

Petya's mistake is that in his statement (“All Russia is our garden”) he focuses on the word “Russia”, thus Russia (if not the whole earth) is represented as an endless number of gardens (“The earth is great and beautiful, there is there are many wonderful places on it”), and the loss of one of them does not seem to be anything important - such negligence inevitably leads to the destruction of everything.

Chekhov, on the contrary, focuses on the word "garden". This means that one concrete garden Russia already exists, and responsibility for it should be the same as for the fate of the entire Motherland, and without the first there can be no second. With this understanding of the “garden-Russia”, the answer to the age-old question “what to do?” there could be a call going back to Goethe and Voltaire: “Let everyone cultivate his own vineyard”, but in this context it would sound like a call not to ultimate individualization, but to selfless labor on one’s own piece of land, and labor should not be perceived as a way to fill the inner emptiness, but as a means to make (sya) better.

There is no hope for a “happy ending” within the play: Firs dies in a boarded-up house; the garden has been cut down or will be cut down, and dachas will be built in its place; a broken string cannot be tied.

Publications in the Literature section

How to read The Cherry Orchard

In October 1903, Anton Chekhov finished work on the play The Cherry Orchard. Director Konstantin Stanislavsky, who first staged the play at the Moscow Art Theatre, confessed: “Its [the play's] charm is in its subtle, deeply hidden aroma. To feel it, it is necessary, as it were, to open the bud of a flower and force its petals to bloom. And until now, The Cherry Orchard remains one of the most controversial works of Russian literature. About what details you need to pay attention to in order to truly understand the play, Irina Sukhova, a researcher at the Department State Museum history of Russian literature named after V.I. Dahl "House-Museum of A.P. Chekhov".

Victor Borisov-Musatov. Spring (detail). 1898-1901. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Krnstantin Korovin. At the tea table (detail). 1888. State Memorial Historical, Artistic and natural museum-reserve V.D. Polenov, Tula region

Claude Monet. Woman in the garden (detail). 1876. State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Read the educational cycle dedicated to the work of Anton Chekhov in the V.I. Dahl "Literary Express".

Interviewed by Ekaterina Tarasova

The remarkable merits of The Cherry Orchard and its innovative features have long been unanimously recognized by progressive critics. But when it comes to genre features plays, this unanimity is replaced by dissent. Some see the play "The Cherry Orchard" as a comedy, others as a drama, others as a tragicomedy. What is this play - drama, comedy, tragicomedy?
Before answering this question, it should be noted that Chekhov, striving for the truth of life, for naturalness, created plays not of purely dramatic or comedic, but of very complex formation.
In his plays, the dramatic is realized in an organic mixture with the comic, and the comic is manifested in an organic interweaving with the dramatic.
Chekhov's plays are a kind of genre formations that can be called dramas or comedies, only keeping in mind their leading genre trend, and not the consistent implementation of the principles of drama or comedy in their traditional sense.
A convincing example of this is the play "The Cherry Orchard". Already completing this play, Chekhov on September 2, 1903 wrote Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko: “I will call the play a comedy” (A. P. Chekhov, complete collection works and letters, vol. 20, Goslitizdat, M., 1951, p. 129).
On September 15, 1903, he informed M.P. Alekseeva (Lilina): “I did not get a drama, but a comedy, in places even a farce” (Ibid., p. 131).
Calling the play a comedy, Chekhov relied on the comic motives prevailing in it. If, answering the question about the genre of this play, we keep in mind the leading trend in the structure of its images and plot, then we must admit that it is based on not a dramatic, but a comedic beginning. Drama means drama goodies plays, that is, those to whom the author gives his main sympathies.
In this sense, such plays by A.P. Chekhov as "Uncle Vanya" and "Three Sisters" are dramas. In the play The Cherry Orchard, the main sympathies of the author belong to Trofimov and Anya, who do not experience any drama.
Recognizing The Cherry Orchard as a drama means recognizing the experiences of the owners of the Cherry Orchard, the Gaevs and Ranevskys, as truly dramatic, capable of evoking deep sympathy and compassion for people who are not going back, but forward, into the future.
But this in the play could not be and is not. Chekhov does not defend, does not affirm, but exposes the owners of the cherry orchard, he shows their emptiness and insignificance, their complete incapacity for serious experiences.
The play "The Cherry Orchard" cannot be recognized as a tragicomedy either. For this, she lacks neither tragicomic heroes, nor tragicomic situations that run through the whole play, defining her through action. Gaev, Ranevskaya, Pishchik are too small as tragicomic heroes. Yes, besides, in the play the leading optimistic idea comes through with all distinctness, expressed in positive images. This play is more correctly called a lyrical comedy.
The comedy of The Cherry Orchard is determined, firstly, by the fact that its positive images, which are Trofimov and Anya, are shown by no means dramatic. Dramaticity is unusual for these images either socially or individually. Both in their inner essence and in the author's assessment, these images are optimistic.
The image of Lopakhin is also clearly undramatic, which, in comparison with the images of the local nobles, is shown as relatively positive and major. The comedy of the play is confirmed, secondly, by the fact that of the two owners of the cherry orchard, one (Gaev) is given primarily comically, and the second (Ranevskaya) in such dramatic situations, which mainly contribute to showing their negative essence.
The comic basis of the play is clearly visible, thirdly, in the comic-satirical depiction of almost all the minor characters: Epikhodov, Pishchik, Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha.
"The Cherry Orchard" also includes explicit vaudeville motifs, even farce, expressed in jokes, tricks, jumps, dressing up Charlotte. In terms of the issues and the nature of its artistic interpretation, The Cherry Orchard is a deeply social play. It has very strong motives.
Here the most important questions for that time were raised: the liquidation of the nobility and estate economy, its final replacement by capitalism, the growth of democratic forces, etc.
With a clearly expressed socio-comedy basis in the play "The Cherry Orchard", lyrical-dramatic and socio-psychological motives are clearly manifested: lyric-dramatic and socio-psychological motives are most complete in the depiction of Ranevskaya and Vari; lyrical and socio-psychological, especially in the image of Anya.
The originality of the genre of The Cherry Orchard was very well revealed by M. Gorky, who defined this play as a lyrical comedy.
"A. P. Chekhov, he writes in the article “0 plays”, “created ... a completely original type of play - a lyrical comedy” (M. Gorky, Collected Works, vol. 26, Goslitizdat, M., 1953, p. 422).
But lyrical comedy"The Cherry Orchard" is still perceived by many as a drama. For the first time, such an interpretation of The Cherry Orchard was given by the Art Theater. On October 20, 1903, K. S. Stanislavsky, after reading The Cherry Orchard, wrote to Chekhov: “This is not a comedy ... this is a tragedy, whatever the outcome a better life No matter how you opened it in the last act... I was afraid that the second reading of the play would not captivate me. Where is it!! I cried like a woman, I wanted to, but I could not restrain myself ”(K, S. Stanislavsky, Articles. Speeches. Conversations. Letters, ed. Art, M., 1953 , pp. 150 - 151).
In his memoirs of Chekhov, dating back to about 1907, Stanislavsky characterizes The Cherry Orchard as "the heavy drama of Russian life" (Ibid., p. 139).
K.S. Stanislavsky misunderstood, underestimated the power of accusatory pathos directed against the representatives of the then departing world (Ranevskaya, Gaev, Pishchik), and in this regard, unnecessarily emphasized the lyric-dramatic line associated with these characters in his directorial decision of the play.
Taking seriously the drama of Ranevskaya and Gaev, unduly promoting a sympathetic attitude towards them and to some extent muffling the accusatory and optimistic direction of the play, Stanislavsky staged The Cherry Orchard in a dramatic vein. Expressing the erroneous point of view of leaders Art Theater on The Cherry Orchard, N. Efros wrote:
“...no part of Chekhov's soul was with Lopakhin. But part of his soul, rushing into the future, belonged to the "mortuos", the "Cherry Orchard". Otherwise, the image of the doomed, dying, leaving the historical stage would not have been so tender ”(N. Efros, The Cherry Orchard staged by the Moscow Art Theater, Pg., 1919, p. 36).
Proceeding from the dramatic key, evoking sympathy for Gaev, Ranevskaya and Pishchik, emphasizing their drama, all their first performers played these roles - Stanislavsky, Knipper, Gribunin. So, for example, characterizing the game of Stanislavsky - Gaev, N. Efros wrote: “this is a big child, pathetic and funny, but touching in its helplessness ... There was an atmosphere around the figure subtle humor. And at the same time, she radiated great touchingness ... all in auditorium together with Firs, they felt something tender for this stupid, decrepit child, with signs of degeneration and spiritual decline, the “heir” of a dying culture ... And even those who are by no means inclined to sentimentality, to whom the harsh laws of historical necessity and change of class are sacred figures on the historical stage - even they probably gave moments of some compassion, a sigh of sympathy or condolences of sadness to this Gaev ”(Ibid., pp. 81 - 83).
In the performance of the artists of the Art Theater, the images of the owners of the Cherry Orchard turned out to be clearly larger, more noble, beautiful, spiritually complex than in Chekhov's play. It would be unfair to say that the leaders of the Art Theater did not notice or bypassed the comedy of The Cherry Orchard.
When staging this play, K. S. Stanislavsky used its comedy motives so widely that he aroused sharp objections from those who considered it a consistently pessimistic drama.
A. Kugel, based on his interpretation of The Cherry Orchard as a consistently pessimistic drama (A. Kugel, Sadness of the Cherry Orchard, Theater and Art, 1904, No. 13), accused the leaders of the Art Theater of that they abused comedy. “My amazement was understandable,” he wrote, “when The Cherry Orchard appeared in a light, funny, cheerful performance ... It was the resurrected Antosha Chekhonte” (A. Kugel, Notes on the Moscow Art Theater, “ Theater and Art”, 1904, No. 15, p. 304).
Dissatisfaction with the excessive, deliberate comedy of the stage performance of The Cherry Orchard at the Art Theater was also expressed by the critic N. Nikolaev. “When,” he wrote, “the oppressive present portends an even more difficult future, Charlotta Ivanovna appears and passes, leading a little dog on a long ribbon and with all her exaggerated, highly comical figure causes laughter in the auditorium ... For me, this laughter was a tub cold water... The mood turned out to be irreparably spoiled ”(N. Nikolayev, U Artists,“ Theater and Art ”, 1904, No. 9, p. 194).
But the real mistake of the first directors of The Cherry Orchard was not that they beat many of the comic episodes of the play, but that they neglected comedy as the leading beginning of the play. Revealing Chekhov's play as a heavy drama of Russian life, the leaders of the Art Theater gave place to its comedy, but only a subordinate one; secondary.
M. N. Stroeva is right in defining the stage interpretation of the play “The Cherry Orchard” in the Art Theater as a tragicomedy (M. Stroeva, Chekhov and the Art Theater, ed. Art, M., 1955, p. 178 and etc.).
Interpreting the play in this way, the direction of the Art Theater showed the representatives of the outgoing world (Ranevskaya, Gaeva, Pishchika) more inwardly rich, positive than they really are, and excessively increased sympathy for them. As a result, the subjective drama of the departing people sounded more deeply in the performance than was necessary.
As for the objectively comic essence of these people, exposing their insolvency, this side was clearly not sufficiently disclosed in the performance. Chekhov could not agree with such an interpretation of The Cherry Orchard. S. Lubosh recalls Chekhov at one of the first performances of The Cherry Orchard - sad and torn off. “In the filled theater there was a noise of success, and Chekhov sadly repeated:
- Not that, not that...
- What's wrong?
- Everything is not the same: both the play and the performance. I didn't get what I wanted. I saw something completely different, and they couldn’t understand what I wanted” (S. Lubosh, The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov’s anniversary collection, M., 1910, p. 448).
Protesting against the false interpretation of his play, Chekhov wrote in a letter to O.L. Nemirovich and Alekseev see positively in my play not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word - that both of them have never read my play attentively ”(A.P. Chekhov, Complete Works and letters, vol. 20, Goslitizdat, M., 1951, p. 265).
Chekhov was outraged by the purely slow pace of the performance, especially by the painfully drawn-out Act IV. “The act, which should last 12 minutes maximum, you have,” he wrote to O. L. Knipper, “is 40 minutes. I can say one thing: Stanislavsky ruined my play” (Ibid., p. 258).
In April 1904, talking with the director Alexandrinsky Theater Chekhov said:
“Is this my Cherry Orchard? .. Are these my types? .. With the exception of two or three performers, all this is not mine ... I write life ... This is gray, ordinary life... But, this is not boring whining ... They make me either a crybaby, or just a boring writer ... And I wrote several volumes funny stories. And criticism dresses me up as some kind of mourners ... They invent from their heads what they themselves want, but I didn’t think about it, and I didn’t see it in a dream ... It starts to make me angry ”(E. P. K a r p o v, Two recent meetings with Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Yearbook of the Imperial Theatres, 1909, no. V, p. 7).
According to Stanislavsky himself, Chekhov could not come to terms with the interpretation of the play as a heavy drama, “until his death” (K. S. Stanislavsky, Articles. Speeches. Conversations. Letters, ed. "Art", M., 1953. p. 139).
This is understandable, since the perception of the play as a drama changed it dramatically. ideological orientation. What Chekhov laughed at, with such a perception of the play, already required deep sympathy.
Defending his play as a comedy, Chekhov, in fact, defended the correct understanding of it. ideological sense. The leaders of the Art Theater, in turn, could not remain indifferent to Chekhov's statements that they were embodied in The Cherry Orchard in a false way. Thinking about the text of the play and its stage embodiment, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko were forced to admit that they had misunderstood the play. But misunderstood, in their opinion, not in its main key, but in particular. The show has changed along the way.
In December 1908, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote: “Look at The Cherry Orchard, and you will not at all recognize in this lacy graceful picture that heavy and heavy drama that The Garden was in the first year” (V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Letter to N. E. Efros (second half of December 1908), Theater, 1947, No. 4, p. 64).
In 1910, in a speech to the artists of the Art Theater, K. S. Stanislavsky said:
“Let many of you confess that you did not immediately understand The Cherry Orchard. Years passed, and time confirmed the correctness of Chekhov. The need for more decisive changes in the performance in the direction indicated by Chekhov became clearer and clearer to the leaders of the Art Theater.
Resuming the play The Cherry Orchard after a ten-year break, the leaders of the Art Theater made major changes to it: they significantly accelerated the pace of its development; they animated the first act in a comedic way; removed excessive psychologism in the main characters and increased their exposure. This was especially evident in the game of Stanislavsky - Gaev, “His image,” noted in Izvestia, “is now revealed primarily from a purely comedic side. We would say that idleness, lordly daydreaming, complete inability to take on at least some kind of work and truly childish carelessness are exposed by Stanislavsky to the end. The new Gaev of Stanislavsky is a most convincing example of harmful worthlessness. Knipper-Chekhova began to play even more openwork, even easier, revealing her Ranevskaya in the same way of “revealing” (Yur. Sobolev, The Cherry Orchard at the Art Theater, Izvestia, May 25, 1928, No. 120).
The fact that the original interpretation of The Cherry Orchard at the Art Theater was the result of a misunderstanding of the text of the play was acknowledged by its directors not only in correspondence, in a narrow circle of artists of the Art Theater, but also before the general public. V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, speaking in 1929 in connection with the 25th anniversary of the first performance of The Cherry Orchard, said: “And this beautiful work it was not understood at first .. maybe in our performance some changes, some rearrangements, at least in particulars, will be required; but regarding the version that Chekhov wrote a vaudeville, that this play should be staged in a satirical context, I say with complete conviction that this should not be. There is a satirical element in the play - both in Epikhodov and in other persons, but take the text in your hands and you will see: there - “cries”, in another place - “cries”, but in vaudeville they will not cry! Vl. I. N emir o v i ch-Danchenko, Articles. Speeches. Conversations. Letters, ed. Art, 1952, pp. 108 - 109).
It is true that The Cherry Orchard is not vaudeville. But it is unfair that vaudeville allegedly does not cry, and on the basis of the presence of crying, The Cherry Orchard is considered a heavy drama. For example, in Chekhov's vaudeville "The Bear" the landowner and her lackey cry, and in his vaudeville "Proposal" Lomov cries and Chubukova moans. In the vaudeville "Az and Firth" by P. Fedorov, Lyubushka and Akulina cry. In the vaudeville "Teacher and Student" by A. Pisarev, Lyudmila and Dasha are crying. In the vaudeville The Hussar Girl, Koni cries Laura. It's not the presence and not even the number of crying, but the nature of crying.
When Dunyasha says through tears: “I broke the saucer”, and Pishchik - “Where is the money?”, This causes not a dramatic, but a comic reaction. Sometimes tears express joyful excitement: at Ranevskaya at her first entrance to the nursery upon returning to her homeland, at the devoted Firs, who waited for the arrival of his mistress.
Tears often denote a special cordiality: in Gaev, when addressing Anya in the first act (“my baby. My child ...”); at Trofimov, calming Ranevskaya (in the first act) and then telling her: “because he robbed you” (in the third act); Lopakhin calming Ranevskaya (at the end of the third act).
Tears as an expression of acutely dramatic situations in The Cherry Orchard are very rare. These moments can be re-read: in Ranevskaya's first act, when she meets Trofimov, who reminded her of her drowned son, and in the third act, in a dispute with Trofimov, when she again remembers her son; at Gaev - upon return from the auction; Varya's - after a failed explanation with Lopakhin (fourth act); at Ranevskaya and Gaev - before last exit from home. But at the same time, the personal drama of the main characters in The Cherry Orchard does not evoke such sympathy from the author, which would be the basis of the drama of the entire play.
Chekhov strongly disagreed that there were many weeping people in his play. "Where are they? - he wrote to Nemirovich-Danchenko on October 23, 1903. - Only one Varya, but this is because Varya is a crybaby by nature, and her tears should not arouse a dull feeling in the viewer. Often I meet “through tears”, but this only shows the mood of faces, not tears ”(A. P. Chekhov, Complete collection of works and letters, vol. 20, Goslitizdat, M., 1951, pp. 162 - 163).
It is necessary to understand that the basis of the lyrical pathos of the play "The Cherry Orchard" is created by representatives not of the old, but of the new world - Trofimov and Anya, their lyricism is optimistic. The drama in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is obvious. This is the drama experienced by the representatives of the old world and is fundamentally associated with the protection of departing life forms.
The drama associated with the defense of egoistic forms of life that is passing away cannot arouse the sympathy of advanced readers and spectators and is incapable of becoming a positive pathos of progressive works. And naturally, this drama did not become the leading pathos of the play The Cherry Orchard.
But in the dramatic states of the characters in this play there is something that can evoke a sympathetic response from any reader and spectator. One cannot sympathize with Ranevskaya in the main - in the loss of the cherry orchard, in her bitter love wanderings. But when she remembers and cries about her seven-year-old son who drowned in the river, she is humanly sorry. One can sympathize with her both when she, wiping away her tears, tells how she was drawn from Paris to Russia, to her homeland, to her daughter, and when she says goodbye forever to her home, in which they passed happy years her childhood, youth, youth...
The drama of The Cherry Orchard is private, not defining, not leading. The stage performance of "The Cherry Orchard", given by the Art Theater in a dramatic way, does not correspond to ideological pathos And genre originality this play. To achieve this correspondence, not minor amendments are required, but fundamental changes in the first edition of the performance.
Revealing the fully optimistic pathos of the play, it is necessary dramatic basis performance to be replaced by a comedy n o-lyrical. There are prerequisites for this in the statements of K. S. Stanislavsky himself. Emphasizing the importance of a more vivid stage rendering of Chekhov's dream, he wrote:
“In the fiction of the end of the past and the beginning present century he was one of the first to feel the inevitability of the revolution, when it was only in its infancy and society continued to bathe in excesses. He was one of the first to give a wake-up call. Who, if not he, began to cut down a beautiful, blooming cherry orchard, realizing that his time had passed, that old life irrevocably condemned to be scrapped ... Give Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard the scope of Chaliapin, and the young Anya the temperament of Yermolova, and let the first with all his might cut the obsolete, and the young girl, anticipating, together with Petya Trofimov, the approach new era, will shout to the whole world: "Hello, new life!" - and you will understand that The Cherry Orchard is a lively, close, modern play for us, that Chekhov’s voice sounds cheerful, incendiary in it, because he himself looks not back, but forward ”(K. S. Stani from Slavic, Collected works in eight volumes, vol. 1, ed. Art, 1954, pp. 275 - 276).
Undoubtedly, the first theatrical version of The Cherry Orchard did not have the pathos that resounds in the words of Stanislavsky just quoted. In these words, there is already a different understanding of The Cherry Orchard than that which was characteristic of the leaders of the Art Theater in 1904. But asserting the comedy-lyrical beginning of The Cherry Orchard, it is important to fully reveal the lyrical-dramatic, elegiac motifs, embodied in the play with such amazing subtlety and power, in an organic fusion with comic-satirical and major-lyrical motifs. Chekhov not only denounced, ridiculed the heroes of his play, but also showed their subjective drama.
Chekhov's abstract humanism, associated with his general democratic position, limited his satirical possibilities and determined the well-known notes of the sympathetic portrayal of Gaev and Ranevskaya.
Here one must beware of one-sidedness, simplification, which, by the way, already existed (for example, in the production of The Cherry Orchard directed by A. Lobanov in the theater-studio under the direction of R. Simonov in 1934).
As for the Artistic Theater itself, the change of the dramatic key to the comedic-lyrical one should not cause a decisive change in the interpretation of all roles. There is a lot in this wonderful performance, especially in its latest edition, is given correctly. It is impossible not to recall that, sharply rejecting the dramatic solution of his play, Chekhov found even in its first, far from mature performances in the Art Theater, a lot of beauty, carried out correctly.

This last play writer, so it contains his most intimate thoughts about life, about the fate of the motherland. It reflected many life experiences. These are memories of the sale of their home in Taganrog, and acquaintance with Kiselev, the owner of the Babkino estate near Moscow, where the Chekhovs lived in the summer months of 1885-1887. A.S. Kiselev, who, after selling his estate for debts, entered the service as a member of the board of a bank in Kaluga, was in many ways the prototype of Gaev.

In 1888 and 1889 Chekhov was resting at the Lintvarev estate, near Sumy, Kharkov province, where he saw many neglected and dying noble estates. Thus, the idea of ​​a play gradually matured in the mind of the writer, which would reflect many details of the life of the inhabitants of the old noble nests.

Work on the play "The Cherry Orchard" required great efforts from A.P. Chekhov. “I write four lines a day, and those with unbearable torment,” he told his friends. However, overcoming illness, domestic disorder, Chekhov wrote a "big play".

The first performance of The Cherry Orchard on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater took place on the birthday of A.P. Chekhov - January 17, 1904. For the first time, the Art Theater honored its beloved writer and author of plays of many productions of the group, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of his literary activity.

The writer was seriously ill, but still came to the premiere. The audience did not expect to see him, and this appearance caused thunderous applause. All artistic and literary Moscow gathered in the hall. Among the spectators were Andrey Bely, V.Ya. Bryusov, A.M. Gorky, S.V. Rachmaninov, F.I. Chaliapin.

About the genre

Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy: “I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce.”(From a letter to M.P. Alekseeva). "The whole play is cheerful, frivolous". (From a letter from O.L. Knipper).

The theater staged it as a heavy drama of Russian life: "This is not a comedy, this is a tragedy ... I cried like a woman ...".(K.S. Stanislavsky).

A.P. It seemed to Chekhov that the theater was doing the whole play in the wrong tone; he insisted that he wrote a comedy, not a tearful drama, he warned that both the role of Varya and the role of Lopakhin were comic. But the founders of the Art Theater K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, highly appreciating the play, perceived it as a drama.

There are critics who consider the play a tragicomedy. A.I. Revyakin writes: “To recognize The Cherry Orchard as a drama means to recognize the experiences of the owners of the Cherry Orchard, Gaev and Ranevsky, as truly dramatic, capable of arousing deep sympathy and compassion for people who look not back, but forward, into the future. But this could not be and is not in the play ... The play "The Cherry Orchard" cannot be recognized as a tragicomedy either. For this, she lacks neither tragicomic heroes, nor tragicomic situations.

The debate over the genre of the play continues to this day. The range of director's interpretations is wide: comedy, drama, lyrical comedy, tragicomedy, tragedy. It is impossible to answer this question unambiguously.

One of Chekhov's letters contains the following lines: "After the summerthere should be winter, after youth old age, after happiness misfortune and vice versa; a person cannot be healthy and cheerful all his life, losses always await him, he cannot save himself from death, even if he were Alexander the Great - and you must be ready for everything and treat everything as inevitably necessary, no matter how sad it may be. All you have to do is do your duty to the best of your ability, and nothing else.” These thoughts are in tune with the feelings that the play "The Cherry Orchard" evokes.

Conflict and problems of the play

« Fiction therefore it is called artistic because it depicts life as it really is. Her appointment is unconditional and honest truth.

A.P. Chekhov

Question:

What kind of “unconditional and honest” truth could Chekhov see at the end of the 19th century?

Answer:

The destruction of noble estates, their transfer into the hands of the capitalists, which indicates the onset of a new historical era.

The external plot of the play is the change of owners of the house and garden, the sale family estate for debts. But in Chekhov's works, the special nature of the conflict, which makes it possible to detect internal and external action, internal and external plot s. Moreover, the main thing is not the external plot, developed quite traditionally, but the internal one, which Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko called the "second plan", or "undercurrent" .

Chekhov is interested in the hero's experiences that are not declared in monologues (“They don’t feel what they say,”- wrote K.S. Stanislavsky), but manifested in "random" remarks and going into subtext - the "undercurrent" of the play, which implies a gap between the direct meaning of the replica, dialogue, stage direction and the meaning that they acquire in the context.

The characters in Chekhov's play are essentially inactive. Dynamic tension is “created by the painful impermanence” of actions and deeds.

"Underwater" Chekhov's play conceals the meanings hidden in it, reveals the duality and conflict inherent in the human soul from the very beginning.

All characters in the play "The Cherry Orchard" have great importance in the ideological and thematic context of the work. Even casually mentioned names bear semantic load. For example, there are off-stage heroes (the Parisian lover, the Yaroslavl aunt), the very fact of whose existence already sheds light on the character and lifestyle of the hero, symbolizing an entire era. Therefore, in order to understand the author's idea, it is necessary to analyze in detail those images that implement it.

A.P. Chekhov loved his heroes, but he could not trust the future of Russia to any of them, even Petya Trofimov and Anya, the progressive youth of that time.

The heroes of the play, sympathetic to the author, do not know how to defend their life rights, they suffer or are silent. Ranevskaya and Gaev suffer because they understand that they cannot change anything in themselves. Their social status goes into oblivion, and they are forced to eke out a miserable existence on the last proceeds. Lopakhin suffers, as he realizes that he cannot help them in any way. He himself is not happy about buying a cherry orchard. No matter how hard he tries, he still will not become his rightful owner. That is why he decides to cut down the garden and sell the land, in order to later forget about it as a nightmare. But what about Petya and Anya? Doesn't the author place his hopes on them? Perhaps, but these hopes are very vague. Trofimov, by virtue of his nature, is not capable of taking any radical action. And without this, the situation cannot be changed. He is limited only to talk about a wonderful future and that's it. And Anya? This girl has a slightly stronger core than Petra. But due to her young age and uncertainty in life, changes should not be expected from her. Perhaps in the distant future, when she arranges everything for herself life priorities, from it it will be possible to expect any action. In the meantime, she is limited to believing in the best and sincere desire plant a new garden.

Which side is Chekhov on? He supports each side, but in his own way. In Ranevskaya, he appreciates genuine female kindness and naivety, albeit seasoned with spiritual emptiness. In Lopakhin, he appreciates the desire for compromise and poetic beauty, although he is not able to appreciate the real charm of the cherry orchard. The Cherry Orchard is a member of the family, but everyone forgets about it together, while Lopakhin is not able to understand this at all.

The heroes of the play are separated by a huge abyss. They are not able to understand each other, as they are closed in the world. own feelings, thoughts and feelings. However, everyone is alone, they have no friends, like-minded people, no real love. Most go with the flow without setting any serious goals. Besides, they are all unhappy. Ranevskaya is experiencing disappointment in love, life and her social supremacy, which seemed unshakable just yesterday. Gaev once again discovers that the aristocracy of manners is not a guarantee of power and financial well-being. In front of his eyes, yesterday's serf takes away his estate, becomes the owner there even without the nobility. Anna is left without a penny for her soul, she does not have a dowry for a profitable marriage. Her chosen one, although he does not require it, has not yet earned anything himself. Trofimov understands what needs to be changed, but does not know how, because he has neither connections, nor money, nor position to influence something. They are left with only the hopes of youth, which are short-lived. Lopakhin is unhappy because he is aware of his inferiority, belittles his dignity, seeing that he is no match for any masters, although he has more money.