La Cerisaie ・ Comédie-Française

As a feudal empire enters decline at the turn of the twentieth century, shifting political and social lines, the cherry orchard remains a haven of beauty, serving as the setting in which the Russian author crystallises the anguish of an era coming to its end.

“Everything must change so that nothing changes” comments Tancredi in Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, made into a film by Visconti, a work in which Clément Hervieu-Léger recognises the sensitivity of the community invented by Chekhov.

Having been forced to sell, Lyubov – who has just returned from Paris – and her family have not grasped the urgency of the situation. Habits, like the childhood memories of an aristocratic class who seemed to have been spared all troubles in life up to then, have rendered them incapable of clear-sightedness, despite the warnings of the marshal Lopakhin, the son of a peasant who will end up buying the property at auction.

After directing Molière and Goldoni, Frank Wedekind and Jean-Luc Lagarce, Clément Hervieu-Léger has now come to this play, a reflection of the movements of our society and the complexities of our lives: “I like a theatre made of memories. The author’s. Our own. I am drawn to these testamentary plays, not because they force us to read our own lives into them, but because they forbid us from sparing ourselves”, explains the director who has nurtured the desire to stage the play for a long time. Along with his fellow actors he takes on this theatre in a troupe spirit that sublimates the natural and the sensitive. Whether it is Lopakhin’s love for the cherry orchard and its owner, the political ideals of the eternal student, the hard-working seriousness of the young Varia or the fidelity of the old servant Firs, they all express both nostalgia and the future, abandonment and renewal.

Premiere 13 November 2021 Salle Richelieu

Creative team

Translation: André Markowicz and Françoise Morvan
Directed by: Clément Hervieu-Léger
Scenography: Aurélie Maestre
Costumes: Caroline de Vivaise
Light: Bertrand Couderc
Original music: Pascal Sangla
Sound: Jean-Luc Ristord
Choreographic work: Bruno Bouché
Artistic collaboration: Aurélien Hamard-Padis
Costume assistant: Claire Fayel

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