The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov (1904)
“A family comes home to save their beloved estate, does absolutely nothing to save it, and loses everything while talking beautifully about the weather.”
Short Summary
The Ranevskaya family returns to their ancestral estate in rural Russia, where the beloved cherry orchard is about to be auctioned to pay debts. Lopakhin, a merchant whose ancestors were serfs on the same land, proposes cutting down the orchard to build summer cottages. The family cannot bring themselves to act. The orchard is sold — to Lopakhin. The family scatters. Old Firs, the servant, is locked inside the empty house and forgotten. An axe falls on wood.
Detailed Summary
Lyubov Ranevskaya returns to Russia from Paris in May, five years after the drowning death of her young son Grisha. She has been abroad spending money she does not have, living with a lover who robbed and abandoned her, and she is coming home because home is the only word she has left. With her are ...