The Bridge Theatre Training Company

'Oh, my childhood, my innocence! In this nursery I slept, from this room I looked out at the orchard, and happiness woke with me every morning.'

Chekhov's last great play was first performed in 1904, just months before he died. It is a vibrant and moving portrait of a family and a nation on the brink of irreversible change. It seems that Russian society is falling apart and that everything that people know and trust is disappearing. Ranyevskyaya returns from Paris to her estate to find herself in massive debt.

The bank is about to sell off her property at auction and she is surrounded by conflicting advice. Her friend Lopakhin has the answer to her problems, but she simply doesn't want to listen.

On the day of the sale she throws one last extraordinary party.