ABSTRACT
. . .It is a play of atmosphere, of mood, of those vague feelings which we English are reluctant to express and hesitate to acknowledge even to ourselves. The general atmosphere, the resultant impression on the whole, is one of the futility of life. We may say, to comfort ourselves, ‘Oh, but we are not so futile as these Russians’; yet it seems we have enough in common with them to feel the effect of Chekhov's picture. They are a feckless, helpless set, this Ranevsky household, drifting, sentimentalizing, while life goes on relentlessly over their heads. Poor Madame Ranevsky will not hear of the project to sell her dear cherry orchard, an historic orchard, too, mentioned in Somebody's great Russian Encyclopaedia. But the sale will save her from ruin? Oh, well, it can't be helped. All the time she is thinking only of getting back to Paris, where she has left her invalid lover. Who else can give him his medicines at the right time? Besides, she loves him, loves him, loves him (and this little outburst of real emotion was admirably done by Miss Mary Grey). Brother Leonid is even weaker than his sister; he can only talk, be rhetorically vapid, and ‘flop’ all over the place.
