Anton Chekhov’s final masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard, was first performed in 1904, a year before the first Russian revolution and only months before he died.

Ranyevskaya, a charismatic but feckless member of the aristocracy, has run out of money. Her estate, including the wonderful cherry orchard, must be sold to pay her debts. Is there any way to save it? Lopakhin, a peasant whom she took under her wing when he was young, is now a wealthy and successful businessman. He has a proposal to solve her woes. Will she take his advice?

This dilemma affects the whole household: her equally feckless brother, Gayev, her daughters, Anya and Varya, her servants and her friends and neighbours on the estate. Through this domestic setting, Chekhov explores large themes of social change, the search for meaning in life and the tangled mix of love, hope, longing and regret that characterises so many relationships. Like all Chekhov’s great plays it manages to be very funny and also deeply moving at the same time.

Our production uses an extremely faithful translation in modern, idiomatic English by Michael Frayn, himself a brilliant playwright.