La Cerisaie

How directors choose to represent the cherry orchard of Chekov’s last play can be a reliable measure of the production’s overall treatment of theme. Imagined as a comedy by the playwright, first directed as a tragedy by Stanislavski (a decision with a lasting influence on the play’s production history), “The Cherry Orchard” tends to stand or fall (no pun intended) on the strength of that wood’s perceived presence in the character’s memories and the urgency of its metaphorical reality for the audience. If directors need not show a mass of budding branches for the production to be a success, to the extent that Chekov was himself profoundly moved by the beauty of a tree in flower – and sufficiently so to write the story of an aristocratic family’s wrenching separation from the orchard that witnessed generations of joys and pains – that stand of trees must manage to cast its shadow across the production.

Director Julie Brochen has imagined a “Cherry Orchard” all in glass and metal, evoking a kind of enclosed terrace from which the family might look upon its beloved landscape. In this way however, the orchard, and all its affective implications, is consequently placed very much outside the scope of the show’s preoccupations. These appear to revolve around the character of Lyubov, played by Jeanne Balibar as a kind of neurasthenic: weak, articulating with difficulty, and slow to react, all of which help explain her obliviousness to the pressing sale of the family estate but fail to develop its significance for her. The production places its emphasis on structure and system rather than metaphor, in the weighty, mechanical set built upon rotating disks and the 1930s era costumes. A final touch of sensitivity comes with the parting lines of Firs, the Ranevskaya’s former serf accidentally locked into the empty house, but it arrives too late. Lopakhin can chop the whole orchard down; its absence is only symptomatic of a general lack of feeling and depth.

To October 24, Tues-Sat, 8 pm, Sun, 3 pm, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Place de l’Odéon, 6e, Mº Odéon, 10-24 euros, tel: 01.44.85.40.40.

Photo credit: Franck Beloncle

Wajdi Mouawad’s Trilogy

“Littoral”, “Forêts”, “Incendies”: Wajdi Mouawad’s trilogy is a triple punch of elemental and human forces: water/air/fire, birth/death/war, childhood/maternity/paternity, to name just a few. As a fragmented tableau depicting the search for self among a Montreal youth bred in conflict and displacement, its numerous pieces fall into place with the presence of all three plays at the Théâtre national de Chaillot, after a run at the 2009 Festival d’Avignon. While the plays have been performed individually in France over the last four years, seen together, they tell a compelling story of the paths love can take when buffered by the competing trajectories of the individual, family, society and country. (See reviews of earlier productions here and at www.parisvoice.com).

If the Greeks considered "agape" (self-sacrifice), the highest form of affection, it is the filial bonds which tightly crisscross the Trilogy that also form its emotional center; when they meet personal, social, political and even global aspirations, they beget notable acts of love in all its dimensions.

In the triptych’s middle, “Incendies” returns to the themes of “Littoral”, Mouawad’s first play, marked by the concerns of a struggling post-university young writer/actor, while prefiguring those of the epical “Forêts”, in particular the idea of broken promises. If the theme lends tragic weight to all of the characters' struggles, it figures most prominently in the story of Nawal, whose abandoning of her newborn son in the midst of civil war, sparks violent consequences for future generations. The question of culturally foreign origins and unknown genitors, which provides the trilogy's obvious intrigue, takes a monstrous turn in "Incendies"...

Under Mouawad’s inspired and imaginative direction, all the works impress by his simple and lucid use of space, color and music. A tendency to overstate concerns does not mar the force of his message. The Trilogy is the consecration of a necessary and ambitiously poetic vision of personal destiny writ in universal language.

To Sept. 19, Tues-Sat, 8 pm, (all three shows Sept. 11 and 18, beginning 11 am), Théâtre national de Chaillot, 1 place du Trocadéro, 16e, 8-32 euros single production, 30 euros /55 euros entire trilogy, tel: 01.53.65.30.00.

Photo Credit: Jean-Louis Fernandez