The Cherry Orchard is the first play we have read that deals with the class system. The play is, also, the first to not focus largely on religious or spiritual topics. Because the play approaches this new topic and eschews the old ones, I expected to like The Cherry Orchard more---an expectation that was not mitigated by the textbooks praise of Chekhov as a realistic writer. I liked this play, and its exposition of upper-class ennui and indulgence is probably the source and inspiration for novels, movies and art that followed; while the Bret Easton Ellis book The Informers does not say anything about shifts in society, the novel uses similar, hapless characters in an aristocratic yet almost decaying society. But I am still unsatisfied with the dialogue; I have not read a play this year that gives an accurate portrayal of how humans actually speak to one another. I am not an expert in early 20th century linguistics, but I believe there is a serious disparity between how humans communicate and what Chekhov thinks they do. Playwrights have a difficult time believing this, but there is fodder and garbage when Billy speaks to Bill. Oscar Wilde is the only human that I have heard of that is said to have spoken like Trofimov and Madame Lyubov. On a different note, I think this play is extremely relevant today; while any serious symptoms of a depression have disappeared, movements like Occupy Wall Street, though in decline, show evidence that there exists a portion of the American public that find current wealth distribution disagreeable.
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