"You ask me, what is life? That's just like asking, what is a carrot? A carrot is a carrot, that's all we know."
So wrote Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), renowned dramatist and master of the short story. Chekhov was pre-eminently a product of his time, an era of great change which saw the abolition of serfdom (his own father was born a serf), the rise of the intelligentsia and subsequent challenges to Tsarism.
However, Chekhov's works avoid passionate political rhetoric. They concentrate instead on deceptively simpler themes: the nature of feeling, and the transience of life.
Chekhov's skill and laconic humor are shown clearly in his last play "The Cherry Orchard", first performed in 1904 shortly before his death.
In four acts, the play tells of a land-owning family who must sell their cherry orchard. The mother (Ranevskaya) and youngest daughter have just returned from five years in Paris where Ranevskaya wasted their roubles on tragic love affairs.
Lopakhin, a merchant friend, suggests that they might save their estate by dividing their land into summer cottages, but Ranevskaya and her brother Gayev are horrified at such a thought. As a result they lose the orchard, and ironically the new owner is Lopakhin, whose family had once worked the estate as serfs.
The central theme of the play is change: the old land-owning class giving way to the new bourgeoisie. While Ranevskaya and her family look lovingly upon their antique bookcase and all that it symbolizes, Lopakhin is more practically-oriented and represents the new order. Having risen above an unhappy childhood of serfdom, he is a self-made man.
The theme can be interpreted on a wider level, typifying the great changes occurring across Chekhov's Russia. In a recent St Petersburg production the set, a series of screens with blossoming cherry boughs behind them, was gradually dismantled as the play proceeded as a symbol of the demise of the old world.
Ranevskaya is presented as a faded starlet who cannot forget her past tragedies. Comforted and protected by her family, she admits that her own weaknesses were the cause of their financial ruin. In the midst of despair she is a strangely happy soul, although it seems like a drug-induced bliss. Varya, her eldest daughter, shoulders the emotional burden of the family.
But "The Cherry Orchard" is not a play of total despair; in fact Chekhov described it as "a comedy in places, even a farce."
Chekhov's aim is not to make his audience wail, for although he acknowledges that change is inevitable, there is always some positive outcome. Ranevskaya and her family must move on ... what of it? Is that such a terrible conclusion?
Chekhov leaves the verdict to his audience.