The Cherry Orchard - Joseph Wood Krutch (essay date 1928)

Joseph Wood Krutch (essay date 1928)

[Krutch was one of America's most respected literary critics. Noteworthy among his works are The American Drama since 1918 (1939), in which he analyzed the most important dramas of the 1920s and 1930s, and "Modernism" in Modern Drama (1953), in which he stressed the need for twentieth-century playwrights to infuse their works with traditional humanistic values. In the following review of a performance of The Cherry Orchard, Krutch offers the play as evidence of Chekhov's genius and singularity as a dramatist.]

For the third new production of its season the Civic Repertory Theater has chosen The Cherry Orchard of Chekhov and has made of the play, familiar as it is, by far the most interesting of the three. It is true that here, as usual, Miss Le Gallienne's production leaves something to be desired—that the limitations, financial and other, of her enterprise preclude the possibility of...

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