The Cherry Orchard

The Cherry Orchard was Chekhov's last play in which he achieves the pinnacle of his work and finds complete mastery of his medium, and which he wrote in 1903.  He called it a comedy but the laughter is blended with tears, hope with despair.  Chekhov carries to the further limit his peculiar power of suggesting the inner loneliness of his characters.  Each one speaks for himself and there is no-one to listen.  The talk drifts on, broken only by a distant sound, thoughts welling up from within the breasts of these waifs.  The play has a rich variety of these characters, each of whom must come to terms with the end of an era in a changing world.