Only 48 to go on the Racine List.

Madame Ranevskaya returns to her Russian estate (which consists largely of a cherry orchard) after her boyfriend in Paris takes all her money. The estate is scheduled to be sold at auction to pay the taxes. Her two daughters, Anya and Varya, her brother Gaev and a bunch of servants all stand around discussing what can be done and from whom they can get loans, but they’re too used to spending money and don’t know anything about making it. The neighbor, Lopahin, recommends that they cut down the trees, break up the estate and sell plots for summer cottages on the river, but the family can’t bring themselves to do it, or much of anything else.

When the auction comes along, Lopahin himself buys the estate and begins chopping down the trees. The family has to leave, finding various jobs to work at. Madame Ranevskaya returns to her boyfriend in Paris.

It’s supposed to be a picture of Russia before the revolution, when the rich could no longer afford their estates because they no longer had serfs to work for them, and former peasants, like Lopahin, were becoming the new rich as a result of hard work.

It was pretty dull and didn’t really go anywhere. None of the characters was especially likeable.