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Home , Peter Brook, Richard Greenberg, Roberts Blossom

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Brooklyn Academy of Music presents

Xt.

Of P BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC , President and Executive Producer

presents

The Cherry Orchard by English Translation by ELISAVETA LAVROVA with (in alphabetical order) BRIAN DENNEHY HOWARD HENSEL LINDA HUNT ZELJKO IVANEK ERLAND JOSEPHSON KATE MAILER CHRIS MCNALLY MIKE NUSSBAUM NATASHA PARRY DAVID PIERCE STEPHANIE ROTH JAN TRISKA Set and Costumes Designed by CHLOE OBOLENSKY Lighting Designed by Incidental Music Composed by JEAN KALMAN Production Stage Manager Casting by ROBERT BENNETT RISA BRAMON and BILLY HOPKINS LISA PETERSON MARIE-HELENE ESTIENNE

Directed by

Joseph V. Melillo, Associate Producer Michael O'Rand, General Manager Paul E. King, Production Manager

BAM Majestic Theater

This program has been sponsored by grants from

eon & © New York Telephone INCORPORATED A NYNEX Company glib. CHASE

0 1; GRENADIER REALTY CORP. of STARRETT CITY IMP , I . managing agent

Arts. Additional funds have been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the The BAM facility is owned by the City of New York and its operation is supported, in part, with public funds provided through the Department of Cultural Affairs. The principal capital funding for the BAM Majestic Theater with the was provided by the City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs special assistance of the Brooklyn Borough President's Office and the Office of the Mayor. CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)

Lopakhin BRIAN DENNEHY Dunyasha KATE MAILER Yepikhodov JAN TRISKA Firs ROBERTS BLOSSOM Anya REBECCA MILLER Lyubov NATASHA PARRY Varya STEPHANIE ROTH Gaev ERLAND JOSEPHSON Charlotta LINDA HUNT Pishchik MIKE NUSSBAUM Yasha DAVID PIERCE Trofimov ZELJKO IVANEK Passerby HOWARD HENSEL Stationmaster CHRIS McNALLY

Understudies: LUDMILLA BOKIEVSKY (Lyubov/Charlotta/Varya); HOWARD HENSEL (Lopakhin/Pishchik/Yepikhodov/Gaev); CATY LAIGNEL (Anya/Dunyasha); CHRIS McNALLY (Trofimov/Yasha/Passerby); MIKE NUSSBAUM (Firs)

ACT I The Nursery ACT II A Field ACT III The Drawing Room ACT IV The Nursery PROGRAM NOTES

The people I fear are those who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and nothing else. That is why I cultivate no particular predilection for policemen, butchers, scientists, writers, or the younger generation. I look upon tags and labels as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies. October 4, 1888 Keep in mind that the writers we call eternal or simply good, the writers who intoxicate us, have one highly important trait in common: they are moving towards something definite and beckon you to follow, and you feel with your entire being, not only with your mind, that they have a certain goal, like the of 's father, which had a motive for coming and stirring Hamlet's imagi- nation. Depending on their caliber, some have immediate goals -the abolition of serfdom, the liber- ation of one's country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka[ . . ] -while the goals of others are more remote-God, life after death, the happiness of mankind, etc. The best of them are realistic and describe life as it is, but because each line is saturated with the consciousness of its goal, you feel life as it should be in addition to life as it is, and you are captivated by it. But what about us? Us! We describe life as it is and stop dead right there. We wouldn't lift a hoof if you lit into us with a whip. We have neither immediate nor remote goals, and there is an emptiness in our souls. We have no politics, we don't believe in revolution, there is no God, we're not afraid of ghosts, and I person- ally am not even afraid of death or blindness. If you want nothing, hope for nothing, and fear noth- ing, you cannot be an artist. November 25, 1892 Anton Chekhov

Passages from Chekhov's correspondence originally published in Letters of Anton Chekhov, translated from the Russian by Michael Henry Heim in collaboration with Simon Karlinsky. Copyright © 1973 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

Chekhov always looked for what's natural; he wanted performances and productions to be as limpid as life itself. Chekhov's writing is extremely concentrated, employing a minimum of words; in a way, it is similar to Pinter or Beckett. As with them, it is construction that counts, rhythm, the purely theatrical poetry that comes not from beautiful words but from the right word at the right moment. In the , someone can say "yes" in such a way that the "yes" is no longer ordinary -it can become a beautiful word, because it is the perfect expression of what cannot be expressed in any other way. With Chekhov, periods, commas, points of suspension are all of a fundamental importance, as fun- damental as the "pauses" precisely indicated by Beckett. If one fails to observe them, one loses the rhythm and tensions of the play. In Chekhov's work, the punctuation represents a series of coded messages which record characters' relationships and emotions, the moments at which ideas come together or follow their own course. The punctuation enables us to .grasp what the words conceal. Chekhov is like a perfect film maker. Instead of cutting from one image to another - perhaps from one place to another -he switches from one emotion to another just before it gets too heavy. At the precise moment when the spectator risks becoming too involved in a character, an unexpected situation cuts across: nothing is stable. Chekhov portrays individuals and a society .) a state of perpetual change, he is the dramatist of life's movement, simultaneously smiling and serious, amusing and bitter- completely free from the "music;' the Slav "nostalgia" that Paris nightclubs still preserve. He often stated that his plays were comedies-this was the central issue of his conflict with Stanislaysky. But it's wrong to conclude that The Cherry Orchard should be performed as a vaudeville. Chekhov is an infinitely detailed observer of the human comedy. As a doctor, he knew the meaning of certain kinds of behavior, how to discern what was essential, to expose what he diagnosed. Although he shows tenderness and an attentive sympathy, he never sentimentalizes. One doesn't imagine a doctor shedding tears over the illnesses of his patients. He learns how to balance compassion with distance. In Chekhov's work, death is omnipresent-he knew it well- but there is nothing negative or unsavory in its presence. The awareness of death is balanced with a desire to live. His characters possess a sense of the present moment, and the need to taste it fully. As in great tragedies, one finds a harmony between life and death. Chekhov died young, having travelled, written and loved enormously, having taken part in the events of his day, in great schemes of social reform. He died shortly after asking for some champagne, and his coffin was transported in a wagon bearing the inscription "Fresh Oysters?' His awareness of death, and of the precious moments that could be lived, endow his work with a sense of the relative: in other words, a viewpoint from which the tragic is always a bit absurd. In Chekhov's work, each character has its own existence: not one of them resembles another, parti- cularly in The Cherry Orchard, which presents a microcosm of the political tendencies of the time. There are those who believe in social transformations, others attached to a disappearing past. None of them can achieve satisfaction or plenitude, and seen from outside, their existences might well appear empty, senseless. But they all burn with intense desires. They are not disillusioned, quite the contrary: in their own ways, they are all searching for a better quality of life, emotionally and socially. Their drama is that society-the outside world - blocks their energy. The complexity of their behavior is not indicated in the words, it emerges from the mosaic construction of an infinite number of details. What is essential is to see that these are not plays about lethargic people. They are hypervital people in a lethargic world, forced to dramatize the minutest happening out of a pas- sionate desire to live. They have not given up. Peter Brook From The Shifting Point, by Peter Brook, A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book, Harper & Row, Publishers. Copyright © 1987 by Peter Brook.

BIOGRAPHIES

ROBERTS BLOSSOM (Firs) worked with BRIAN DENNEHY (Lopakhin) began his act- Peter Brook in The Physicists on Broadway and ing career on the New York stage, appearing in at BAM as Knut Hamsun in Ice Age, for which many off-Broadway plays before starring in Mike he won an Obie Award. His films include Close Nichols' award-winning Broadway production of Encounters of the Third Kind, Resurrection, The David Rabe's Streamers. Other stage productions Great Gatsby, Escapefrom Alcatraz, and Handle include Galileo, The Rat in the Skull, Bus Stop, with Care, among others. Two other Obies were Julius Caesar, Ivanov and The Front Page. Well awarded him for his work in 's recognized in contemporary American cinema, production of Do Not Pass Go and in Shaw's Mr. Dennehy made his film debut in 1977 in Village Wooing. He will appear soon in Robert Michael Ritchie's football comedy-drama Frank's film about greed, Candy Mountain and Semi-Tough. Roles followed in such films as in Martin Scorcese's The Passion. [Continued]

_....711.-- Looking for Mr. Goodbar, FIST, Little Miss for which she also won an Obie; Elizabeth Dead; Marker, Foul Play, '70; First Blood, Split Image, The Tennis Game; Ah, Wilderness!; and Hamlet, Never Cry Wolf, Gorky Park, Twice in a Lifetime among others. Her films include Waiting for the and Legal Eagles. He has held leading roles in Moon, Silverado, Dune and The Bostonians. films including Cocoon, Silverado, FX, Best Seller, and soon-to-be-released The Belly of an Architect.

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- -- ZELJKO IVANEK (Trofimov) Broadway: Loot, Brighton Beach Memoirs (Tony nomination), The Survivor. Off-Broadway: A Map of the World HOWARD HENSEL (Passerby) was the only (Public Theater), Cloud 9 ().

American in the original Paris production of Regional: Master Harold: . .and the boys (World Peter Brook's La Tragedie de in which Premiere, Yale Rep.), Idiot's Delight, Hay Fever, he played Don Jose. He repeated the role in the Charley's Aunt, The Front Page (Williamstown Vivian Beaumont production and Theatre Festival). Television: "Echoes in the again in Mr. Brook's film version which can be Darkness" (CBS), All My Sons" (PBS), "The seen on the Arts & Entertainment cable network. Sun Also Rises" (NBC), "Alice in Wonderland" Mr. Hensel has appeared with the New York City, (PBS). Films: Rachel River, Mass Appeal, The San Francisco, Houston, Miami, and Seattle Sender, Tex. Graduate of and the opera companies, among others. He can also be Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. seen in the film A Strange Love Affair and has appeared on "Guiding Light," "One Life to Live; and "Another World." i '

r r4ti, hN ERLAND JOSEPHSON (Gaev) was born in Stockholm in 1923. Today he is one of Sweden's jr.,40 ha, ' 4PtroeN foremost , directors, authors, and script- LINDA HUNT (Charlotta), though best known writers. In 1945 he made his debut as an to film audiences for her Academy Award- at the Helsingborg Municipal Theatre, where winning performance in The Year ofLiving Dan- Ingmar Bergman was Theatre Head and Stage gerously, Ms. Hunt has worked in the theater for Director. Josephson worked there till 1949 when years in: The Matchmaker; Aunt Dan and Lemon; he moved to the Gothenburg Municipal Theatre. End of the World, for which she received a Tony In 1956 he was engaged by the Royal Dramatic nomination; Mother Courage; Top Girls, which Theatre in Stockholm and was its head from 1966 won her an Obie; Metamorphosis in Miniature, to 1975. Among his many outstanding roles were , k' ,

Petrucchio, Romeo, Faust, the Marquis de Sade, gfil and Professor Higgins. Under his leadership the Royal Dramatic Theatre toured Italy, England and West Germany. Mr. Josephson has published two anthologies of verse, six novels, a collection of short stories and has written a number of stage plays, film scripts and radio plays. Following his performance in Bergman's Face to Face, his twelfth film with Bergman, he played a variety of prestigious roles in a succession of interna- tional pictures, including Li liana Cavani's Beyond Good and Evil, in which he played Nietzsche; Damiano Damiani's I'm Afraid, Franco Brusati's To Forget Venice, and Andrej Tarkovski's two last films, Nostalgia and Sacrifice. He has also writ- CHRIS McNALLY (Stationmaster) received his ten and directed for Swedish Television. MFA from NYU last May, where, among many r- other things, he and his director friend Jonathan . Rosenberg adapted the poetry and prose of South African exile Breyten Breytenbach into a one per- son show called In the Shades of Grey. This sum- mer he appeared in Joseph Papp's productions of Richard II and Henry IV part 1.

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KATE MAILER (Dunyasha) most recently originated the role of Shamey, a fifteen year-old punk rocker at the John Drew Theatre in Stephen Hanan's Rainbow's Return. Kate has also appeared in various productions in San Francisco including Phase One's The Miss Firecracker -4. Contest, as Popeye, and as Jo in Lee Blessing's REBECCA MILLER (Anya) began to act Independence (Panda-On-Stage Productions). professionally in 1987 with the part of Lucile in Previous New York appearances include Joy in the NBC miniseries, "The Murder of Mary Sam Shepherd's Chicago at the Ensemble Studio Phagan." Ms. Miller has been and continues to Theatre and Marilyn Monroe at the Actor's Stu- be a painter and sculptor, showing in New York dio in Strawhead. Ms. Mailer also appeared as and Connecticut. Chrissy in Hair at the Hasty Pudding Theatre, a revival that originated at Brown University, from which she graduated in 1984, and where she appeared in a variety of roles.

celebrating N 6 ,- 7g, a03- 49, ,.to YEARS OF J BOOKS & - - READERS MIKE NUSSBAUM (Pishchik) has appeared in [Continued] New York in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Tchin co-starring with Marcello Mastroanni. She Ross, and The Shawl which re-opened the New- has also appeared in a number of films includ- house Theater at Lincoln Center. Recently he was ing Midnight Lace, , Monsieur at E.S.T. in Comic Dialogue by Alan Zweibel, Ripois, the most recent being Marion Hansel's the in Principia Scrip- Le Lit. toriae by Richard Nelson, and the Second Stage revival of Little Murders by Jules Feiffer. Among his many roles in Mamet plays and films are Teach in American Buffalo, the older actor in A Life in the Theater, Joe in Lakeboat, George in Duck Variations, Joey in the film House of Games, and the Chicago Mafia Don in the just completed movie Things Change. Some of his favorite roles: Willy Loman in the Steppenwolf production of Death of a Salesman, Papa Pepe in El Grande De Coca-Cola, Pirandello's Man with a Flower in his Mouth, the headmaster in 40 Years On, and most recently the Rabbi in the American premiere of Two by Ron Elisha.

DAVID PIERCE (Yasha) played Lysander in Liviu Ciulei's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Laertes in Mr. Ciulei's Hamlet; Treplev in Lucian Pintilie's production of The Seagull, and Damis in Mr. Pintilie's Tartuffe. He has performed at the Guthrie, Goodman and Long Wharf , , Manhattan Theatre Club, the Public Theatre, and on Broadway. He was last seen in New York in 's The Author's Voice at the Ensemble Studio Theatre.

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NATASHA PARRY (Lyubov) was born in Lon- don and trained at the Arts Educational School. She made her first professional appearance in London's West End at the age of 12 in Maxwell Anderson's Wingless Victory directed by Michael Redgrave. She has had a widely varied career, ranging from Shakespeare to musicals, from stock to experimental groups. In England she worked under such directors as , George Devine, Terry Hands and for the Royal Shakespeare Company played Phedre in Euripides' Hippolytus and appeared in Gorki's Children of the Sun. In America she made her TV debut in Peter Brook's production of "King STEPHANIE ROTH (Varya) most recently Lear" playing Cordelia opposite appeared as Olivia in Studio Arena Theatre's . and her Broadway debut opposite Rex Harrison production of Twelfth Night. She spent this past in The Fighting Cock. From 1970-74 she was part summer on Broadway understudying with the of Peter Brook's International Center of Theatre Royal Shakespeare Company in their production Research on its many projects and journeys, of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. A recent graduate including performing in villages in Africa. Since of the Juilliard School, her favorite work there then much of her work has been in Paris, play- includes Loretta in History of the American Film, ing The Night of the Iguana, Richard III, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, The Jewish Schiller's Kabale and Liebe, The 5 Noh Plays of Wife, and Elizabeth Vogler in a stage adaptation Mishima directed by Maurice Bejart, and Tchin- of Bergman's Persona. Vanya. Television audiences have seen her in "Breter" and "The Equalizer:' I

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JAN TRISKA (Yepikhodov) has performed roles including Gabriele d'Annunzio in John Krizanc's CATY LAIGNEL (Understudy for Anya and Tamara in Los Angeles, the Devil in Bulgakov's Dunyasha) was born in Caracas, Venezuela and in The Master and Margarita, and the title role has lived in the U.S. since 1984. In Venezuela she George Walker's Zastrozzi, both directed by performed for two years with an experimental Andrei Serban for the New York Shakespeare theater company. In the U.S. she studied at HB Festival; Caliban in Liviu Cu lei's production of Studios, SUNY Oswego and Hampshire College, Eli; ; the title role in Nelly Sach's as well as performing with the Franzini Family at Moliere in Bulgakov's Monsieur Moliere the Commedia del Arte Troupe in Oswego, N.Y. Ms. Guthrie Theatre; Avram in Michael Weller's Laignel is making her New York City debut with Ghost on Fire at the La Jolla Playhouse; this production of The Cherry Orchard. Medvedenko in The Seagull; and Captain Martha Swope & Associates, Carol Rosegg. Locicero in Idiot's Delight, both directed by Peter Photography by Sellars at the American National Theatre at the PETER BROOK (Director) Peter Brook was John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His born in London of Russian parents. He graduated television credits include "Crime Story," "Falcon from Oxford University and started directing Crest," "Evergreen," "Airwolf," "Hotel," "Malice plays at the age of 19. Since 1947, he has directed in Wonderland," and "The Alamo." Mr. Triska's a vast number of plays and worked with such film credits include Blackeagle, Reds, The Ama- actors as Sir John Gielgud, Sir , teur, The Osterman Weekend, Unfaithfully Yours, , and the Lunts. He Uncommon Valor and 2010 was made Co-director of the Royal Shakespeare

, Theatre in England, and became world-famous for such productions as Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, , , Hamlet, The Tempest, , A Midsummer Night's Dream and . Amongst his most well-known films are: Moderato Cantabile, , Marat-Sade, King Lear, Meetings with Remark- able Men. In 1971, with Micheline Rozan, Mr. Brook founded the International Centre of The- atre Research in Paris. Theater people of many nationalities were brought together to explore the sources of dramatic expression -language, movement, sound and space -in the varying urban and rural environments of Asia, Africa, LUDMILLA BOKIEVSKY (Understudy for Europe and both Americas. The first three-year Lyubov, Charlotta and Varya) is a graduate of the program was made possible through grants from Academic Repertory Dramatic Theatre in Kiev, the Ford Foundation as well as the Anderson and U.S.S.R. In Russia Ms. Bokievsky performed the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundations. In order with The Dramatic Repertory Theatre in to combine the research activities with perfor- Jaroslavl. Among the productions in which she mances for the theater-going community, the has appeared both in the U.S.S.R. and America Centre International des Creations Theatrales are Ceremony in Bohemia, The Seagull, Two for was established in 1974 with the help of the the Seesaw, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night and Uncle [Continued] French Ministry of Culture. Its base became a JEAN KALMAN (Lighting Designer) Jour- long-unused Paris theater, Les Bouffes du Nord. nalist, cameraman, lighting designer, he worked Peter Brook presented there with Peter Brook on the lighting of The Cherry (1974), followed by Les Iks (1975), Colin Orchard and The . He also writes Turnbull's account of the extinction of an African poetry. tribe, Ubu (1977), Measurefor Measure (1978), The Conference of the Birds (1979), The Cherry ELISAVETA LAVROVA (English translation) Orchard (1981) and The Tragedy of Carmen was born into an aristocratic family in Moscow (1982). which opened at the in 1908; her father was a general in the Tsar's Avignon Festival in the summer of 1985 is his army. She left Russia in 1920 to live in London latest production. Peter Brook is married to where she worked in film and theater and devel- actress Natasha Parry. They have two children: oped a wide circle of literary friends and in 1969 Irina and Simon, both of whom are already work- she moved to France. Ms. Lavrova's adaptation ing in theater and cinema. of The Cherry Orchard was originally prepared for Peter Brook's Paris production at the Bouffes CHLOE OBOLENSKY (Designer) Born in du Nord theater, and she worked in close collabo- Athens of Greek parents, Chloe Obolensky was ration with Jean-Claude Carriere on the French educated in England and France. She began her version. work in the theater as assistant to Lila de Nobili. Subsequently she designed the sets and ROBERT BENNETT (Production Stage Man- costumes for a number of plays and operas work- ager), a graduate of the University of Michigan, ing in collaboration with Gian Carlo Menotti, most recently managed the Broadway comedy, Mauro Bolognini, Raymond Rouleau and Franco The Nerd. Other Broadway productions he has Zeffirelli. She is the author of The Russian served as Stage Manager are Going Up, I Love Empire, a portrait in photographs which was My Wife, I Remember Mama (the musical), Bent, published in the United States, Britain, France, Macbeth, and Nicholas Nickelby. Off-Broadway, and Germany. During the past six years she has Mr. Bennett has managed the original New York designed the costumes and sets for Peter Brook's productions of Enter a Free Man, Stein productions of The Cherry Orchard and the and a Companion, and Groucho. He toured the costumes for The Tragedy of Carmen. She not U.S. and Canada with such hits as Grease, only designed the costumes for The Mahabharata, Shenandoah, Guys and Dolls, My Fat Friend, but also scenic elements and all properties. Evita, Sugar Babies and La Cage Aux Folles. STAFF FOR CREDITS THE CHERRY ORCHARD Scenery built by American Stage and Equipment, Assistant Inc.; Costumes by COSPROP, Ltd., The Studio; General Manager Jeffrey R. Costello Lighting Equipment by Bash Theatrical Light- Company Manager Ellen Dennis ing Inc.; Sound Equipment by Masque Sound and Stage Manager Andrew Feigin Recording Corp.; The Costume Shop, Inc.; Assistant Production Bokara Rug Company, Inc.; Metropolitan Stu- Manager Christopher D. Buckley dios; "Dixie" provided by Alan Kleinberg; Martin Project Coordinator L Bayly Ledes & Umman Textile Gallery; Symourgh Carpets; Assistant to the Director Nina Soufy A. Menzildjian Oriental Rugs; Megerian Bros. Assistant to the Designer Pippa Cleator Oriental Rugs; Bella Oriental Rugs; Early Hal- Assistant Company Manager . . Ann Raleigh loween Prop Hire; Beckenstein's Fabrics; Harry Assistant Stage Manager Caty Laignel Zarin Fabrics; 20/20 Colorists; U.S. Flower Hair/Make-Up Company; Blatt Billiards; Bill's Flower Com- Supervisor Vito Mastrogiavanni pany; Laura Ashley, Inc.; Music-Inn Musical Magic Consultant David Bickford Instruments; Louis Tannen Magic; C & C Art

Legal Counsel . . . . Ronald E Feiner, Colton, Hire, Ltd. London; Harold Rudin Decorating; Hartnick, Yamin & Sheresky Wizard Productions; Wigs provided by Paul Huntley, Ltd.

The actors and stage managers employed in this SPECIAL THANKS production are members of Actors' Equity Asso- Laura Fisher; John Bright; Anne F. Zimmerman; ciation, the union of professional actors and stage The New York Shakespeare Festival and Steve managers in the United States. Sabo; Andrew Vidick; Anton Blummen; Betty Williams. BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC wishes to thank the sponsors who have helped to make this production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD possible

mir trzeoi, Ct. @ New York Telephone INCORPORATED A NYNECi. Company

CHASE 111.

0 6, GRENADIER REALTY CORP. 0 1 I. managing agent of swan, CITY

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Additional funds have been provided by: The National Endowment for the Arts and The New York State Council on the Arts The BAM facility is owned by the City of New York and its operation is supported, in part, with public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The principal capital funding for the BAM Majestic Theater was provided by the City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with the special assistance of the Brooklyn Borough President's Office and the Office of the Mayor.