The Cherry Orchard

by Anton Chekhov directed by Ron Daniels at the American Repertory Theatre through February 27

At the beginning of the American Repertory Theatre's production of The Cherry Orchard, Yermolai Lopakhin rouses himself in the middle of the night to greet a train. Although the businessperson wakes up, he seems to wake into a dream in which everything is slightly off-balance. Director Ron Daniels' airy, sweetly comic production emphasizes the imblances of Chekhov's picture of a changing world.

The interactions in the Ranevskaya household have shifted during the five-year absence of Madame Ranevskaya, who owns the orchard and the house that overlooks it. She left Russia for Paris after her young son drowned in the river outside the house, and has now been fetched home to attend to her mountainous debt. Madame Ranevskaya returns to her daughter Anya, who has maintained her childlike innocence while her older sister Varya has Maintained the household.

In the owner's absence the bit players in the house have become mainstays, including Pyotr, the eternal student who was the drowned boy's tutor, and Dunyasha, the frazzled housemaid with her many suitors. The house about to undergo an even more major change: the beloved cherry orchard must be sold to pay the family's debts.

The old era is ending, the peasants are becoming landowners, the servants are free to go, and the orchard will be chopped down and subdivided.

Claire Bloom, a grand dame of theatre and the newest member of the A.R.T. company, fills the role of landowner Madame Ranevskaya ably, but is too restrained to convey the character's significance. Her Ranevskaya is flighty and foolish, and her translucent presence little justifies the excitement surrounding her return.

The other actors lend more weight to the production, particularly Jack Willis, whose Lopakhin is the perfect voice of reason in a household adrift. However, Lopakhin's business sense has left him no time for would-be wife Varya, played with appeal and sympathy by Miki Whittles. In her interpretation of Varya's sister Anya, Karen Phillips comes across as flaccid and boring. For the first scene, she inexplicably delivers her lines directly to the audience. This bland performance renders the affection of dire, serious Pyotr (Royal Miller) for Anya unlikely.

The orchard appears onstage--if the audience is willing to dream. Represented by reed-like fluorescent tubing, the cherry orchard lights up the stage but frustratingly is often blocked by other scenery. The other scenery includes two-dimensional cutouts of slanting houses, off-kilter columns standing alone on the floor, and floating window frames. With so many pieces, all of them rigged from above, George Tsypin's cluttered design has more traffic flying in and out than Logan Airport.

The set looks best in the final scene, when the houses are cleared away and the stage is swathed in bright white accentuating the neon-painted bookcase, chair and rocking horse. Only then is the orchard visibly the heart of the house, and of the characters' lives.

Chekhov would have appreciated this production of his classic, which emphasizes the script's comic elements. He always insisted the play was a comedy, despite the preponderance of productions that yearned for political implications and darker meanings. The A.R.T.'s Cheery Orchard depicts the passage of an age in the sunlight of a dreamlike afternoon.