Themes, Stanislavsky, Place

28th August 2014

On the first lesson we initially discussed the general themes that surround the play in order to get a refresher and brainstorm various elements of the play. We discovered several themes such as wealth, love, hardship, moving on, memory, status and class. We developed it further by explaining why these themes were so vital and obvious. I enjoyed discussing the theme of hardship, as all characters experience it but Chekhov displays how people deal with hardship, as Lopakhin uses his serf ancestry to motivate him to escape his previous slavery and role reversal of Ranevsky. However, Ranevsky avoids her hardship travelling to and fro in order to escape the horrific economic reality that she is faced with.

Then our teacher asked us to stand in a neutral position, whilst closing your eyes and mentally paint a picture of your Cherry Orchard and how you view it, using Stanislavsky's technique. Deciding whether or not the trees were rugged, whether the roots were protruding, whether the orchard was ordered and neat, what were the smells, tastes and sounds. This aided our imagination and helped develop our own personal connection with the Cherry Orchard, creating a past and imagining specific details immerses yourself into the scene and performance. As an actor I started to base the Orchard around memories that I had had already, so I would merge different forests that I had previously visited and create my own image of the Orchard myself. 

We were then asked to individually imagine our own "most beautiful place in the world", so that we could relate to Ranevsky's perspective on the Cherry Orchard whilst also further exploring the theme "memory", and how specific people may recall information differently, whether it be positive or negative. Selecting a Brazilian beach as my most beautiful place, I "painted" the image with my hands whilst my eyes remained closed recalling all the information I possibly could and additionally sketching in tastes and smells so that I felt completely within that place and although my memory blurred I still felt an immense connection and wanted to avoid the thought that I couldn't recall some information, this caused me to feel empathy towards Lubov as I could understand why she wouldn't want to let go of the physical aspect of the orchard, as it may negatively affect the memories of the estate.