Boling's recommendation - week of 13 June 2005

Boling's recommendation - only show seen week of 13 June 2005. I'm gone this week (and will miss the next three weekends' shows also), so you won't see anything from me until mid July.

Wednesday 15 June 2005: The Cherry Orchard, Exchange Theatre at the Bathhouse
The program says "A comedy by Anton Chekhov." That's the way he saw his pieces. My dictionary says that a comedy has a happy ending; it's hard to see happy endings in most Chekhov. However, if you contrast comedy to tragedy, and use the usual definitions of literary tragedy (look 'em up), one could say that no modern play can be tragedy, because we almost always come down on the side of free will - that the characters have choices, and are not predestined to a fixed (unhappy) end. Check out this straightforward (as adapted by Michael Frayn) version of the story of a widow who must sell her estate to repay debt, and see whether you class it as tragedy, comedy, or something unnamed in the middle (it isn't farce).
Checkmarks to Dennis Kleinsmith as a nouveau riche acquaintance of the widow; to Nikki Visel as the widow; and to Kevin Brady as a perpetual student who sounds like he's been reading Marx. Honorable mentions to Heather Hawkins as the practical daughter, and to Douglas Moening as the uncle. There are also eight more to keep sorted out. Stewart Hawk directed.