Celebration of Chekhov at Greenwich Playhouse

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: THE GREENWICH PLAYHOUSE

Internationally acclaimed Galleon Theatre Company celebrates two decades of staging exceptional theatre, The Greenwich Playhouse enjoys the 15th anniversary of itsinception; and it is 150 years since the birthday of Anton Chekhov.

To mark this triple celebration, Galleon is delighted to present Chekhov’s last play: The Cherry Orchard.

“Galleon has found the perfect intimate space in which to pull us right into Chekhov’s
milieu.” - The Independent

The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov’s most autobiographical play. It echoes the author’s own financial and domestic troubles, resembles Chekhov’s love of the land and his passion for his own cherry orchard - which after returning from Yalta where he had gone due to ill heath, he was devastated to find cut down by its new owner.

The Cherry Orchard shares familiar social and political themes with the writer’s earlier plays but above all it is pertinent to contemporary environmental issues because its concern with industrial deforestation. This has led to Chekhov being regarded as one of Europe’s first significant ecological writers.

“Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day’. - Uncle Vanya

The Cherry Orchard is creatively spearheaded by a very experienced and award winning team.

The Director - Bruce Jamieson has previously directed thirty highly successful Galleon
theatre productions and played leading roles in some sixty stage plays. As an actor, his television and film credits also include The Oxford Murders (Tornasol); Murphy’s Law (Tiger Aspect); Monarch of the Glen (Ecosse); Ali G-Inda House (Universal); Roughnecks (BBC); In Suspicious Circumstances (Granada); Crime Solver (BBC); and Spongebob (BBC).

He is the co-founder of the Greenwich Playhouse, Galleon Theatre Company and Galleon Films.

The Producer is multi-award winner ALICE DE SOUSA who in 2009 won two prestigious
international awards, including the Portuguese government’s ‘Premio de Talento’ in recognition of her 25 year career in the theatre. She has created over seventy stage productions; played leading roles in some thirty theatre plays; and written many highly acclaimed stage and screen scripts.

In 2005 the American Biographical Institute awarded her with Great Women of the 21st Century and Woman of the Year 2005. (These awards exclusively recognise the impact on society of the work of 1000 prolific women worldwide).

The translation by Elisaveta Fen still stands as one of the very best because of its poetical
use of the English language, its judicious sense of period, and formidable ability to create for the reader and audience a rich and complex sense of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Significantly, it also avoids the tendency, often found in contemporary translations, to forcibly Anglicize and modernise Chekhov’s painstakingly drawn world.

Dates: 30th March – 25th April 2010, Tues-Sat @ 7.30pm - Sun @ 4pm
Tickets: £12, £10 (concs.)
Box Office: 020 8858 9256 - boxoffice@galleontheatre.co.uk
Venue: Greenwich Playhouse, Greenwich Station Forecourt, 189 Greenwich High Road London, SE10 8JA

For more information contact the Galleon website here.