Upstaged Rating:⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
HOME’s newest offering is a science-fiction reimagining of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard. This production relocates the original text from a turn-of-the-century Russian farm to a spaceship, the serfs converted to the ship’s lower deck workers who go their whole lives without ever looking out of a window.
The plot concerns the overly complacent Captain Prema Ramesh (Anjali Jay), part of a long line of clones who have been running the ship for generations – great importance is placed on their birth right to act as captains and custodians of the vessel, and that their decisions should not be questioned by the inferior ‘down-decker’ workers. However, the final goal of their mission is still many generations in the future, and with resources running low on the ship former down-decker Abinash Lenka (Maanuv Thiara) is elected as the new captain and decides to end the failing voyage prematurely by landing on a nearby hospitable planet.
Whilst Vinay Patel’s reimagined script pulls some interesting points out of the original text, these are all used far too sparingly. It feels like an attempt at Chekov’s masterful subtlety, but the balance isn’t quite struck here and the result feels more like the bare bones of a play than a finished production. There are so many threads which are alluded to but then don’t go anywhere – an interesting romance with the ship’s AI assistant, a vanity-driven side mission from which the captain has just returned, the ethics of cloning – the list goes on. Perhaps the most famous trope in theatre is Chekov’s gun – if you show a gun in the first act then it must be fired in the fourth. Unfortunately, that gun has been loaded with blanks here.
The setting of a spaceship is cleverly rendered in Rosie Elnile’s slowly rotating, Tardis-inspired set, but outside of that the sci-fi elements are drastically underutilised – this is a shame as it has the potential to be such a fruitful source of interesting theatrical moments.
One of the few places it is used well is in the character of the robot butler Feroze (Hari Mackinnon). Usually, the idea of robots on stage is anathema to me, but this is perhaps the first time I’ve seen it pulled off successfully. Mackinnon’s physicality is arresting to watch. He also brings some much-needed comedy to the otherwise rather stern proceedings, whilst also providing pathos as he is left alone on the ship in the play’s final moments.
Despite this, by the end of the show the atmosphere in the theatre makes it feel a little like being in space yourself.
– Daniel Shipman
The Cherry Orchard runs at HOME Manchester until 19 November 2022.