As we like to live in harmony with the seasons and shit we’ve just been in a friend's orchard picking cherries; we picked about 5kg each, enough to make jams and pies and stuff, then we had a bar-b-que, and a good time was had by all. (right: One of Romania’s top supermodels kindly took time off from her catwalk duties to do her bit for the country’s Fruit Marketing Board). This occasion also presented the Dilo Dramatics Society with a golden opportunity; so here, using a real orchard, real cherries, and real East European peasants, we present our neo-realist version of Anton Chekhov’s:THE CHERRY ORCHARD
The Cast:
Mme. Ranevskaya: Vanessa Redgrave
Honest Serf Toiling in the Imperialistic Cherrytree of Capitalist Exploitation: Michael Elphick or possibly Robin Asquith
Peter Trofimov: Leonardo DiCaprio
Dunyasha: Julie Ege
(SCENE: A Cherry Orchard, obviously)
Mme. Ranevskaya: (enters orchard right) “Ah, my Sunshine, my spring!”
Honest Serf Toiling in the Imperialistic Cherrytree of Capitalist Exploitation: “Hey, Mrs, if you’re coming this way can you bring us that ladder?”
Mme. Ranevskaya: “To think this will soon no longer be in our family!”
Serf: “There’s a lovely bunch of really ripe ones here but I can’t quite reach them.”
Mme. Ranevskaya: “If only dear Leonid were here!!”
Serf: “I don’t see why, he’d be about as much help as you are. If you don’t want to bring the ladder, can you pass me that stick?”
Mme. Ranevskaya: (breaking down in tears) “My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it's dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can't live without it.”
Serf: “Ain’t it always the way.”
Mme. Ranevskaya: (Sobs quietly)
Serf: “How about that Dunyasha though? You’d tell her to go up tree first though if you know what I’m saying, hyah hyah hyah!”
Peter Trofimov: (enters orchard left)
Serf: “Oh blimey, another one”
Peter Trofimov: (exits orchard right)
Serf: “Ladder, over there, if... oh forget it”
Mme. Ranevskaya: “If only there was something I could do”
Serf: “Well, you could organise a Workers’ Council which would portion out the orchard to all who work in it...
Mme. Ranevskaya: “If only I hadn’t bought all those hats and that crate of caviar last time I was in Dnepropetrovsk”
Serf: “...the leader to be elected by the council on a bi-monthy basis but all rulings to be then ratified by a People’s Subcommittee.”
Mme. Ranevskaya: “Oh, what gay times, but... now I am ready to die."
Serf: “Good for you, Mrs. Try to pick up some of the ones that have fallen on your way out.”
Mme. Ranevskaya: (Looks at the serf for the first time. 3 seconds pass. Somewhere in the distance a magpie is heard)
(CURTAINS)
(applause)
