premieres at the Moscow Art Theatre on this day, 17th January, in 1904. 

This is a California orchard, as viewed from a speed of 75 mph on the Five Freeway in the Central Valley, so not cherries and not quite the same thing at all, but on the other hand, "The Cherry Orchard" is a story about change, about the passing away of the old world and the emerging of the new, about the transference of power as represented in the land (the cherry orchard) and "Change" is certainly a word on everyone's political minds these days, isn't it.  Not to mention the whole question of power, and to extend the analogy, the whole question of what's going to happen to the cherry orchard? 

"Christina," I hear Joan Crawford saying, wielding garden clippers in a ravaged ballgown, "bring me the axe."

Of course, you can resist change in that "won't-grow-up" attitude of Peter Pan (which also premiered in 1904) or cling to the delusion of some fantasy future (Never-Neverland) as Madame Butterfly also does, dreaming of the return of her American husband Pinkerton as the cherry blossoms fall (in another 1904 premiere), but there's a fin-de-siecle bittersweet awareness in all three works that the future is perhaps not going to turn out to be quite what you're hoping for. 

In a sense, all this talk about change -- it really is another way of imagining we have any personal control over the world, right?  That no matter how inept we may be about family and fortune, we'll always be able to hold onto privilege and the old customs?  That we don't really have to ever grow up?  That true love can never die?  Isn't that everyone's secret dream?  To keep things the way they are, for nothing to change, for that feeling to last forever?

Of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't bother to vote, or that you needn't get up and make your bed and show up for duty --  nothing as silly as that.  But maybe keep a sense of humor about it.  A detached perspective at least.  Even Chekhov said his play was a comedy.  I like the David Mamet translation, where at the end Anya goes to her Mother and says in this very self-consciously "Good" and "Dutiful" way, so Aware of the Importance of the Moment and almost reveling in the Dramatic Possibilities of it, as she rises to the occasion:
 
"Mama.  My beautiful one.  I love you.  The cherry orchard is sold.  It is no more."

Now maybe I'm just hearing the self-involved Joan Crawford announcing she's changed studios, but I do believe with Mamet you know that every period, every pause is important.  See how he breaks down the line?  The pauses are where the comedy is.  And come on, you do too know people who talk like Anya, I know you do, because I do.  A few drinks in me and I could deliver lines like this.  In fact, I have.  Oh the drama.  The tragedy while I go look for more scenery to chew on.  And then Anya continues:

"We'll plant a new orchard.  A better orchard than this.  And joy will settle on your spirit.  Deep joy.  Quiet joy.  Like the sun at evening.  Mama. (pause)  Mama."

In addition to the periods and the stage-direction Pause, he gives us italics too.  Critical.  And no no no no, I'm not saying the play ends (these are the last words) with belly laughs, with folks rolling in the aisles like it was a Monty Python sketch, but seriously you gotta admit, a smile at least?  Rueful, knowing, but at least a smile, right?  I mean, there's no new and better orchard coming for them.  The Serfs have won their freedom, the social order is coming apart, a new world is dawning, Peter may never grow up but Wendy does and she will and she'll become a mother herself one day although whether her own boys are the Lost Boys who die in World War One or World War Two isn't something the play really bothers to address. 

"Va, gioca. Gioca," Butterfly says to her little boy, Pinkerton's son, right before she goes and kills herself. 

"Go, play.  Play."