The Cherry Orchard

Anton Chekhov, Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781559364843
• eBook ISBN: 9781559367936
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

"Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English."—The New Yorker

There have always been two versions of Chekhov’s heartrending and humorous masterwork: the one with which we are all familiar, staged by Konstatine Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, and the one Chekhov had originally envisioned. Now, for the first time, both are available and published here in a single volume in translations by the renowned playwright Richard Nelson and Richard Peavar and Larissa Volokhonsky, the foremost contemporary translators of classic Russian literature. Shedding new light on this most revered play, the translators reconstructed the script Chekhov first submitted and all of the changes he made prior to rehearsal. The result is a major event in the publishing of Chekhov’s canon.

Richard Nelson's many plays include Rodney's Wife, Goodnight Children Everywhere, Drama Desk-nominated Franny's Way and Some Americans Abroad, Tony Award-nominated Two Shakespearean Actors and James Joyce's The Dead (with Shaun Davey), for which he won a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and the critically acclaimed, searing play cycle, The Apple Family Plays.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have produced acclaimed translations of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Their translations of The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina won the 1991 and 2002 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prizes. Pevvear, a native of Boston, and Volokhonsjky, of St. Petersburg, are married to each other and live in Paris.

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THE CHERRY ORCHARD

1903 Script

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CHARACTERS

LYUBÓV ANDRÉEVNA RANÉVSKAYA (Lyúba), a landowner

ÁNYA (Ánechka), her daughter, seventeen years old

VÁRYA (Varvára Mikháilovna), her adopted daughter, twenty-four years old

LEONÍD ANDRÉEVICH GÁEV (Lyónya), Ranevskaya’s brother

ERMOLÁI ALEXÉEVICH LOPÁKHIN (Alexéich), a merchant

PYÓTR SERGÉEVICH TROFÍMOV (Pétya), a student

BORÍS BORÍSOVICH SIMEÓNOV-PÍSHCHIK, a landowner

CHARLÓTTA IVÁNOVNA [no last name], a governess

SEMYÓN PANTELÉEVICH EPIKHÓDOV, a clerk

DUNYÁSHA (Avdótya Fyódorvna Kozoédova), a maid

FIRS (Nikolaevich), a servant, eighty-seven years old

YÁSHA, a young servant

A PASSERBY

THE STATIONMASTER

A POSTAL CLERK

GUESTS, SERVANTS

The action takes place on L. A. Ranevskaya’s estate.

ACT ONE

A room which is still called the nursery. One of the doors leads to Anya’s room. Daybreak, the sun will rise soon. It is already May, the cherry trees are in bloom, but it is chilly. There is a morning frost in the orchard. The windows in the room are shut.

Dunyasha enters with a candle and Lopakhin with a book in his hand.

LOPAKHIN

The train’s come, thank God. What time is it?

DUNYASHA

Going on two. (Blows out the candle) It’s already light.

LOPAKHIN

How late does that make the train? A couple of hours at least. (Yawns and stretches) I’m a fine one, too! Made a fool of myself! Came here on purpose to meet them at the station, and slept right through it . . . Sat down and fell asleep. A shame . . . You might have waked me up.

DUNYASHA

I thought you left. (Listens) There, I think it’s them.

LOPAKHIN

(Listens) No . . . They’ve got to pick up the luggage and all that . . .

Pause.

Lyubov Andreevna’s been living abroad for five years. I don’t know what she’s like now . . . She’s a good person. Easy, simple. I remember when I was a kid of about five or six, my late father—he kept a shop then, here in the village—punched me in the face with his fist. My nose bled . . . We had come here to the yard together for some reason, and he was a bit drunk. Lyubov Andreevna, I remember it like today, still a young thing, so slender, she led me to the washstand, here, in this same room, in the nursery. “Don’t cry, peasant-boy,” she says, “it’ll go away by your wedding day . . .”

Pause.

Peasant-boy . . . True, my father was a peasant, but here I am in a white waistcoat and yellow shoes. A pig in the parlor. Oh, I’m rich all right, I’ve got lots of money, but if you really look into it, I’m as peasant as a peasant can be . . . (Leafs through the book) I’m reading this book and don’t understand a thing. I fell asleep reading it.

Pause.

DUNYASHA

And the dogs didn’t sleep all night. They can sense the masters are coming.

LOPAKHIN

Dunyasha, why are you so—

DUNYASHA

My hands are trembling.

LOPAKHIN

You’re much too pampered, Dunyasha. You dress like a young lady, and do your hair up, too. It’s not right. Remember who you are.

Epikhodov enters with a bouquet. He wears a jacket and brightly polished boots that creak loudly. He drops the bouquet as he enters.

EPIKHODOV

(Picking up the bouquet) The gardener sent it. He says to put it in the dining room. (He hands the bouquet to Dunyasha)

LOPAKHIN

And bring me some kvass.

DUNYASHA

Yes, sir. (Exits)

EPIKHODOV

There’s a morning frost, three below, and the cherry trees are all in bloom. I cannot appro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• A Note on the 1903 Script
• The Cherry Orchard
• About the Authors