The essence of Chekhov

THE emotion of Sean Mathias’ affecting production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” which opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum, slips into moments that you might not ordinarily expect to be moved by.

When Lopakhin, the self-made entrepreneur who can’t shake off his lowly upbringing, opens a book only to acknowledge how much of it was lost on him, it’s hard not to feel the haunting grip of a disadvantaged past. It’s the kind of throwaway detail that a less adept actor would treat as incidental comic color. But as played -- no, embodied -- by Alfred Molina, it becomes an X-ray into a man who, no matter how successful he has grown, still feels unworthy of the expensive suit he’s wearing.

Many in the generally first-rate ensemble, led by a radiant Annette Bening as Ranyevskaya, find ways of registering the tiny heartbreaks that, while not enough to stop their characters dead in their tracks, let them know that life means business. Disappointment may be rife (especially in areas of love and economic solvency), but the future beckons with nervous-making hope and possibility. It’s here that Chekhov’s poignant comedy flowers, and Mathias’ production (relying on a fresh, British-inflected translation by playwright Martin Sherman) manages the paradox of leaving us feeling delighted while a lump swells in our throats.

In some respects, the measure of any “Cherry Orchard” can be taken by the handling of Lopakhin, the character who ultimately buys the homestead out from under the debt-ridden family he has admired, loved and financially counseled to no avail. Chekhov, recognizing just how pivotal this figure is, wrote a letter to his director, Konstantin Stanislavsky, to try to persuade him to take the role: “Lopakhin, of course, is only a merchant, but he is a decent person in every sense, should conduct himself with complete decorum, like a cultivated man, without pettiness or trickery, and it did seem to me that you would be brilliant in this part, which is central to the play.”

Molina, without question the finest Lopakhin I’ve encountered, turns what in crude, melodramatic interpretations amounts to the comic villain of the piece into a quandary-filled human being. Consider the way he pleads with Ranyevskaya to sell the cherry orchard to pay off the debts of her family estate. In his tender concern are echoes of the little boy who was consoled by this great aristocratic lady after his drunken father bloodied his nose. “Don’t cry, little peasant,” he recollects her telling him. “It will heal by the time you’re married.” Molina makes it clear that his character was instantly besotted -- and has had something to prove ever since.

Bening charismatically conveys Ranyevskaya’s supercharged sensibility, which can turn from laugher to tears to haughty irritation in seconds. Watch how she cruelly upbraids Trofimov (Jason Butler Harner), her dead son’s tutor, for considering himself above love, only to lead him in a conciliatory dance once she sees how helplessly vulnerable he is. Or, more deliciously, the way she ejects herself from her seat in the midst of Lopakhin’s worshiping words to her. Boredom obviously doesn’t agree with her (she has a lot of unopened bills to forget), yet she can’t help letting him know that she feels safer having him around.

Mathias’ direction underplays the big scene between Ranyevskaya and Lopakhin in which, in the midst of her curiously timed party, he drops the bombshell that he’s the new owner of the orchard. Bening keeps her face lowered in despair while Molina contains the obvious glee of a man who has finally claimed the land his ancestors had toiled on as serfs. The staging (the actors are kept at a distance from each other and the audience) subverts the emotion, which is only encouraged to build in less momentous circumstances.

It’s strange, then, that the production stoops occasionally to saccharine underscoring and moody lighting when the sentiment turns sorrowful. Granted, the play makes notoriously difficult demands on its designers. How do you realistically convey the beauty of a white orchard that has taken on the dimensions of a family myth? Scenic designer Alexander Dodge opts to show only the house itself, with a few pieces of elegant furniture situated against a rather monotonous bleached-wood backdrop. The breaking string ominously heard in the distance near the end of Act 2, which signals an epochal shift in the characters’ lives, has been called the most difficult noise to pull off in modern drama. Here it sounds as though a UFO has landed.

But it’s the acting that makes or breaks Chekhov. And though some of the minor characters are played in a jarringly silly manner (as though in fear of the atmosphere growing too grave), nearly all the major roles are deeply inhabited -- and will no doubt become even more so over time.

As the perpetual student Trofimov, Harner delicately intermixes his character’s zealous idealism with quiet bafflement. He’s eager to launch into one of his disquisitions on the inevitable progress of history, even if others can’t help uncharitably pointing out that he still hasn’t figured out how to get his university degree. His ardor for Anya (played with refreshing optimism by Rebecca Mozo) has to be translated into a social mission for the two of them. Yet Harner hints that under his monastic garb lies a nature every bit as passionate as the self-dramatizing romantics around him.

Peter Cambor’s Yasha, the valet who’s acquired cheap-scented sophistication while traveling with Ranyevskaya in Paris, is a foppish womanizer who steals furtive pleasures while carefully guarding his own advancing reputation. The portrayal suggests more than the usual clownish fop: He’s a knockoff version of Ranyevskaya’s self-indulgent brother Gaev (Lothaire Bluteau), who, though he’d been outraged by the comparison, is just as enamored with superficial graces.

Sarah Paulson lends Ranyevskaya’s adopted daughter, Varya, a clear sense of the pathos fueling her unremitting work ethic. In love with Lopakhin, she keeps herself occupied from morning to night as she waits for a proposal that will never come. Her despair when the question is crushingly not popped at the end of the play is all the more devastating for its silent acceptance.

That final wrenching scene, in which family members take their leave of one another, realizes much of the work’s autumnal beauty. It’s also where Bening flourishes in the role. Though she has lost the site of her childhood memories, her Ranyevskaya marches into the future as only any of us can -- by uncomplainingly putting one foot in front of the other. Clearly, she’s steeling herself with a dignity as much for her own sanity as for that of her daughters’.

It is to Bening and Molina’s shared credit that we see in these closing moments her character in the end through Lopakhin’s tear-filled eyes.

*

‘The Cherry Orchard’

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays

Ends: March 19

Price: $20 to $55

Contact: (213) 628-2772

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Annette Bening...Ranyevskaya

Lothaire Bluteau...Gaev

Jennifer Dundas...Dunyasha

Frances Fisher...Carlotta

Jason Butler Harner...Trofimov

Alfred Molina...Lopakhin

Rebecca Mozo...Anya

Sarah Paulson...Varya

By Anton Chekhov. Adapted by Martin Sherman. Directed by Seah Mathias. Sets by Alexander Dodge. Costumes by Catherine Zuber. Lighting by James F. Ingalls. Sound by Jon Gottlieb. Hair and wig design by Gerald Altenburg. Production stage manager David S. Franklin.