The Free State: A South African Response to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard

This powerful version of Chekhov’s famous drama reflects the South African phenomenon of the 1990s. With the hindsight of the new millennium we can look back and see that the miracle did happen. The new order did take over from the old. The fruitless cherry orchard was chopped down. The old men who couldn’t move with the times have been left behind and forgotten. Chekhov’s great pre-revolutionary drama, dreaming of youthful energy replacing the worn-out inertia of a dying world, lends itself vividly to this new setting in post-revolutionary South Africa.