Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard opened Nov. 6 on the MainStage Theatre in the Scales Fine Arts Center. To say the show was the most entertaining thing I've seen on campus would be an exaggeration; however, watching it was definitely a learning experience.

Having seen only one other Chekhov play, The Good Doctor, a collection of vignettes combining satirical humor with biting social commentary, I expected more of the same.

Unfortunately, I must say I was disappointed by Cherry Orchard, a more serious piece, and one that attempts to address a social agenda by developing one small set of characters.

The problem with having only one group of characters, rather than many who hold the stage only for short scenes, is that these characters must be dynamic enough to carry the plot, and in this case, they are not.

On the whole I thought the cast, led by director John E.R. Friedenberg, director of the University Theatre, dealt with the difficult play rather well. Cherry Orchard is a play that can only be funny in the context of the ironies of life that are presented. But I got the distinct impression that something had been lost in translation, because the vernacular of the show seemed much too modern to accurately represent a Russian family of the early twentieth-century.

The stage was set exquisitely, as it always is for the University Theatre's performances. The scenery was first rate, from doorways and china sets, to pianos and antique luggage.

The actors looked equally breathtaking, wearing beautiful costumes up to par with the best Broadway performances. I could almost attend the shows to see what the designers have put together, but that should only be the background, to ease the audience into the illusion, the rest must be done by the actors themselves.

Cherry Orchard, is in short, about an upper-class Russian household consisting of two daughters, a widowed mother, her brother and their servants and neighbors.

The play begins with the return of the mother Luibov, played by junior Melissa Jones, from her five-year retreat to Paris. She returns to her two daughters and the house she grew up in, only to find that the house and all her property, including the beloved cherry orchard, will soon be auctioned away.

Jones handled the tremendous task of developing the play's main character ¯ a woman crushed by a bad marriage, the death of her husband, a scandalous love affair, the death of her only son and finally, impending poverty.

The two most insightful monologues were performed by freshman Matt Gutschick as Yermolai Lopakhin and senior Andy Rigsby as Petya Trofmov.

These characters portrayed two opposing schools of thought, Yermolai, the man of low social standing who works his way to wealth, and Petya, the perpetual graduate student who denounces all material wealth in favor of the truth and meaning of life.

The most powerful performance, however, was by sophomore Scotty Candler who played Firs, the elderly butler who had served the family for generations. Firs seems to be the only one who remembers "the good old days," when the masters took care of their servants and everyone stuck together through good times and bad.

Through hacking coughs and amusing mumbles, Candler observes that the servants are now the ones running the establishment and that the family can't even act to save its own property. In the end it is Firs, and with him all traces of the old days, who is forgotten.