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The orchard downtown

"Odeon" Theatre

Posted in Arts and culture on Wednesday, December 15, 2004

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I don’t know about others, but I like to sometimes imagine how things used to be 100, 200, 300 years ago even, while I walk around in a contemplative mood. For example, I wonder how "Pasajul Victoria", Odeon and Tandarica Theater, Majestic and Capsa Hotel used to look like at the beginning of last century. I could very easily find out by picking up a book dedicated to the Old Bucharest or Calea Victoriei. But I don’t want to know about the buildings, gardens or terraces, as my interest is not really of a historical nature. What interests me is the hustle and bustle, the smell and sound, how the sun would rise and set on the buildings many, many years ago. It’s more a matter of my imagination playing a fastidious trick on me, rather than a curiosity with a serious core. Maybe it’s the effect of this state of mind which often envelopes me, or maybe it’s something real… but I recently heard that, in the middle of downtown Bucharest, there sprung up an orchard. A cherry orchard. People around me were speaking of it, and I rushed to see it, as well. It is, indeed, beautiful. And I invite you to see it also: "The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov, at the Odeon Theater, a play directed by Sorin Militaru.

Chekhov wrote "The Cherry Orchard" little before he died; it is his last play. Maybe this is why it is the most mysterious, most nostalgic and the most intelectually provocative of his plays.
Ranevskaia Liubov Andreevna is back home, after years spent abroad, and in order to pay her debts she must sell her cherry orchard. The alienation of her orchard, though, confuses and torments everyone, including the very person who buys it. The question becomes... "what is that cherry orchard, in essence?". The excellent production that Sorin Militaru is able to put together freshly exploits the infinite richness of Chekhovian literature. The roles are vivid, some of them showing unexpected character traits, and the producer elegantly waltzes us through melancholy and comedy, thus finally leaving us with a sense of "heavy lightheartedness". Nevertheless, the play will reveal to each and every one of us our own inner cherry orchard, that territory so intimate that it’s sacred, and so sacred and profound that it’s almost too deeply buried and almost forgotten.

At the end, we give standing ovations to the remarkable Anca Neculce, Sebastian Papaiani, Rodica Mandache, Mircea Constantinescu, Antoaneta Zaharia, and Pavel Bartos, and to Stefania Cenean’s fluent scenography which evolves without syncope. But mostly, we applaud our very own journey to our cherry orchard. That cherry orchard which, at some point, we might have sold it also, in order to pay our debts. Open up "Sapte Seri", find out when "The Cherry Orchard" is playing, do not hesitate to dress up for the theatre, take your loved ones, go to Odeon, and let yourselves be under the show’s spell, as you probably would… with your own memories.


"The Cherry Orchard", by A.P. Chekhov
"Odeon" Theatre
Address: Calea Victoriei no. 40-42, sect. 1, Bucharest, 70102

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