Place, 609-258-2787. Opening night for the show that runs through

April 16. $27 to $39. Friday, March 31, 8 p.m.

for any seats available at the time of purchase. Public Rush policy

makes unsold tickets available at the box office only on day of performance

for half-price.

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McCarter Theater and Emily Mann

Last spring when McCarter announced its millennium

season, "The Stonemason," a play by Cormac McCarthy, was scheduled

for April. When McCarter opened its season in September, the McCarthy

play — about four generations of an African-American family —

was still on the docket. But when McCarter artistic director Emily

Mann finished working on the opening play, "Fool for Love,"

and turned her attention to her next project, she found the play needed

some work and that the author would not be available. Mann needed

a replacement — without further ado.

Like any other creative person, theater people always have more projects

they want to do than time to do them. And in the back of Emily Mann’s

mind was Anton Chekhov’s "The Cherry Orchard." She had relegated

it to the back shelf with the intention of doing it — maybe next

year, certainly the year after that. She announced her decision in

October.

"I always knew one day I would direct it," Mann has written,

"and it’s no coincidence that I became obsessed with the play

at the turn of the millennium." She points out that Chekhov’s

play was written in 1904, near the turn of the last century and at

a time of great social transition — between the freeing of the

serfs in 1861 and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Lyubov Ranevskaya, the character played by Jane Alexander, is unwilling

to cope with her family’s financial crisis or to take steps to save

her estate. "Aristocratic inertia and entropy," Mann writes,

"are, in the end, bested by upwardly mobile pragmatism and drive

when the estate is bought at auction by the son of one of the family’s

former serfs."

Yet Chekhov is not confined by the historical time. "He tells

a universal story about the private ache and public confusion brought

on by a world in flux," Mann has said. "The more I succumbed

to the work’s peculiarly Russian mix of laughter and tears, the more

I found myself reflecting on our own rapidly transforming historic

moment."

She remembers what a Chekhov scholar at the Moscow Art Theater told

her: "`The Cherry Orchard’ is, in the end, about life itself.

We live, smiling in the face of eternity."

Mann spent more than the usual amount of time exploring the richness

of Chekhov’s text, because she did, in fact, do her own translation.

She had directed the Lanford Wilson translation of another Chekhov

play, "Three Sisters," early in her McCarter tenure. But when

she looked at available translations for this play, she found them

disappointing. "Too many of the English versions sounded stiff

and outdated," she says, "while others seemed overlaid with

the distinctive personalities of their translators."

While the timetable was tight, it was more generous than an earlier

one, Mann’s 1997 rendition of the Garcia Lorca play, "The House

of Bernarda Alba." "Adapting Lorca was a last-minute decision,"

says Mann in a moment snatched from rehearsal last week. "I had

one month working 12 to 14 hour days to finish that script. With `The

Cherry Orchard,’ when I decided to do my own adaptation, I had almost

three months to work on it, working six to eight hour days."

Mann enlisted the help of Ellen Chances, a Princeton University professor

of Russian literature. Chances supplied both a literal translation

and a detailed commentary on the verbal nuances and shades of meaning

of the text. "Ellen and I had a wonderful collaboration; we had

meetings to go over the work," says Mann. "Out of those meetings

I created a literal translation from which the script grew."

"Chekhov wrote the way people speak," Mann believes. "His

poetry is one of everyday speech, of common language pressed into

a seemingly effortless mosaic." In both the translation and the

direction, Mann wanted to balance light with dark, because she thinks

that Chekhov’s poignancy is too often emphasized at the expense of

his comic style. She cites how the playwright kept telling the play’s

first director, legendary Konstantin Stanislavsky, that this play

was not supposed to be mournful or weepy but instead should be "fast,

passionate, and terribly funny."

McCarter has assembled a cast worthy of the Chekhov/Mann

script, and how that happened is a tale of good timing and good networking.

If you are a theater professional and Emily Mann says she will do

lunch, say yes.

Take Jane Alexander, for instance. As head of the National Endowment

for the Arts Alexander had been the one to present McCarter’s Tony

Award to Mann in 1994. In 1995, when Alexander was still chair of

the NEA, she spoke at Princeton University’s baccalaureate service.

The actress and her director husband, Ed Sherin, had wanted to discuss

a project with Mann at one of those "we really must get together,

let’s work sometime" lunches. But over the course of the meal

the project that ended up on the front burner was Mann’s idea of having

Alexander take the role of Ranevskaya.

Recently retired from her job at the NEA, Alexander had just had a

run starring on Broadway in the short-lived play "Honour"

and had just finished playing a secondary role in the movie "Cider

House Rules," and she was, indeed, ready to take on a new challenge.

"This is the perfect moment in her career to do this role,"

says Mann. "She’s the perfect age, has the perfect temperament,

and I’ve always wanted to work with her. It’s the perfect time."

Recruiting the rest of the cast involved similar networking opportunities.

The noted actor and director Avery Brooks, for instance, teaches at

Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, starred as television’s Hawk,

and is starring in "Star Trek Deep Space Nine." He is known

for his role as "Othello," and for more than 20 years he has

been drawing acclaim for the title role in the play "Paul Robeson."

Brooks came to see Mann’s production of the Sam Shepard drama "Fool

for Love" last September and made one of those "We should

work together sometime" statements.

"When Avery and I spoke then, I had no idea that I would be directing

`The Cherry Orchard,’" says Mann. "Once `The Cherry Orchard’

became a reality, we met for lunch, and I told him he’s the definitive

Lopakhin, and that he must play the role."

Lopakhin is the former serf who buys Ranevskaya’s estate. To cast

an African American in a serf role, Mann says, reflects the resonance

between the post-feudal era in Russia and the Reconstruction period

of the United States. The time period coincides: The serfs were freed

only two years before the abolition of American slavery in 1863. She

finds the parallels striking.

Mann was alerted to the possibility of casting Barbara Sukowa, the

distinguished German film and theater actress, by her college roommate.

(The roommate’s German aunt had been the inspiration for one of Mann’s

earliest plays.) Through that family Mann learned that Sukowa, known

for her film work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, was living in New

York State with her husband, Robert Longo, a well-known artist. Casting

directors were able to track Sukowa down to play Carlotta.

Also in this production is a dog, and here another insider connection

was tapped. Veteran actor Allan Swift brought his dog "Dreidel"

to rehearsals every day. Dreidel fit the bill. Early in Swift’s diverse

career he had done all the puppet voices on the Howdy Doody show,

and he went on to "do" voices for almost every male celebrity

and politician and hundreds of inanimate objects featured in television

commercials. He is one of Mann’s favorites — this is his fourth

play with her.

Other members of the cast turn out to have their own connections to

Princeton. John Glover, who plays Leonid Gayev, won a Tony and an

Obie for his performance in "Love! Valour! Compassion!" and

received Emmy nominations for five shows, including "Law and Order"

and "Frasier." Glover’s cousin Robert, as it turns out, teaches

history at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School.

To act on the edge that Chekhov requires — between comedy and

tragedy — is not easy, yet Mann says her cast is "capable

of performing on that knife’s edge." Did she use some image or

some pacing technique to maintain that teetering balance?

"The writing did it," says Mann. "We always went back

to the text. We’re doing the play the way Chekhov intended — fast,

passionate and terribly funny. Chekhov said it was a comedy, but we

are not forcing any humor. It’s in the text."

— Barbara Fox

the guests for a dialogue on drama immediately following the 2 p.m.

matinee on Sunday, April 2. Moderated by Janice Paran, McCarter’s

dramaturg, this free event will begin at approximately 4:30 p.m. One

need not attend the performance to attend the dialogue. Post-performance

discussions will be also be held Wednesday, April 5, and Sunday, April

9.

McCarter will host a theater party after the performance on Friday,

April 7, at 8 p.m. The party features performances by acclaimed Russian

artists, pianist Inessa Gleyzerova and vocalist Yakov Yavno. The cost

is the same as the regular ticket: $39 and $35.

Pay-what-you-can performances, subject to availability, are Wednesday,

March 29, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. Public rush

tickets, half price, may be available at the box office on the day

of any performance. Call 609-258-2787.

Corrections or additions?

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