After spending years in Paris, the widow Ranevskaya returns to her family home: a country estate in Smeerebbe-Vloerzegem. Time has not stood still there: she is greeted by heavy debts and the estate is to be auctioned off. The businessman Lopakhin proposes to make pies with the cherries that grow in her orchard and sell them from door to door. Unfortunately, Lopakhin is not the world’s greatest salesman...
director and script
Stef Lernous
actors
Kirsten Pieters, Chiel van Berkel, Tine Van den Wyngaert, Louis van der Waal
scenery and lighting design
Sven Van Kuijk
producer
Abattoir Fermé
co-producer
nona arts centre
with the support of
the Flemish Community
In The Cherry Pie, written by Danny Chekhov (Anton’s lesser-known brother, ed.), there is, well, a lot of talking and even more crying. There’s a party in there somewhere, and a funeral, and there’s even a scene in which Ranevskaya vomits up a mountain of cherries into an aesthetically justified bucket. Above all, however, The Cherry Pie is a story about longing for a world that no longer exists.
Danny Chekhov was born in Minsk in 1851, without the merest ounce of talent. Following a court case brought against him by his brother Anton – who believed Danny’s play The Ostrich bore a striking resemblance to The Seagull – he fled to Achterkapelle-aan-de-Dijle, where he dedicated the rest of his life to writing. Danny died a miserable death in about 1905, leaving his two sons nothing but a mountain of debts and the manuscript of The Cherry Pie. The play has never been performed in its entirety until now (and quite rightly so).
