Der Kirschgarten

In the organizer's words:

Ranjewskaja is immediately captivated by the magic of the old cherry orchard when she returns home after five years spent in France. Memories of carefree days come flooding back, and they are much more pleasant than the reality she actually has to face: both she and her brother have lived beyond their means in recent years. Their assets have been used up and the family estate, which includes the cherry orchard, is heavily in debt. They lack the ideas and energy to save it and so it is finally put up for auction. Lopachin, a rich merchant whose ancestors were serfs of Ranevskaya's family, wins the bid and immediately gets to work. While the estate residents were still wallowing in nostalgia, the first cherry trees were already falling. The area is parceled out and built up with dachas. The new times demand returns instead of magic.

In Chekhov's comedy, a society refuses to face the challenges of the future. The inhabitants of the estate have made stagnation their way of life and have lost their reason for being and thus their ability to act. The belief that the future can be averted by ignoring it long enough proves to be a grave error. With the falling cherry trees, the supposed paradise is destroyed. Irony of fate: on the day of the outbreak of the October Revolution, "The Cherry Orchard" was on the program of the Moscow Artists' Theatre.