27 February 2026
Festival Theatre
Adelaide
Play
When I booked to see The Cherry Orchard I hadn't clocked that the person responsible for the production was the same writer/director whose adaption of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea I had hated in London last year. That London show really hadn't worked for me in its modernised form (see my recent review of it), but I am thankful to say that wasn't the case with The Cherry Orchard. I think it helped that the transposition of Russian nobility to Korean chaebols worked seamlessly, so there wasn't so much that felt forced about the changes. I liked the simplistic yet visually interesting set and the limited but effective use of music at key moments. Part of my reason for going was Korean practice and I was happy to see I could understand some parts without needing to read the surtitles. I did have to view them at times, though, for complex, fast-spoken bits of dialogue. One thing I disliked in both The Cherry Orchard and The Lady from the Sea, however, was Stone's insistence on having characters speak over each other. Yes, this is truer to how conversation works in real life, but it makes it hard to keep up with the action when you can't make out any of the lines clearly, so I really wish he would move away from this. The cast were all excellent and a joy to watch, and overall I am giving this production 4.5 stars. It was definitely worth seeing.
One complaint I have about the evening was not the play itself but rather being charged a whopping $15 for a programme that was only 16 pages (20 if you generously include the cover), and two of those pages were ads. I paid $15-16 equivalent for each programme I bought at musicals in Seoul in 2023 and 2024, and those are all books 1cm thick and full of information, glossy production photos etc. Even my programmes in London for the two shows I went to there last year were better value in terms of page count to cost. It makes the premium price of programmes here in Adelaide feel like a money grab. *end rant*
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