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When a slightly bolshie director puts the toughness back in Chekhov the audience can expect a barb or two, writes Andrew Clark.
An idyllic spot of natural beauty is under threat from developers keen to throw up modern holiday homes for an influx of tourists. It is a theme as rich in resonance in Australia today as it was in Anton Chekhov's Russia at the end of the 19th century.
Chekhov's final masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard, centres on the aristocratic, lazy, bankrupt Madame Ranevskaya, who is struggling - and failing - to save her attractive, wooded estate from incomers. Her family's once unchallenged dominance comes into conflict with a newly moneyed class - including the sons of serfs.
© The Sydney Morning Herald.