The first thing that came to mind when I started reading The Cherry Orchard was Russia. I immediately gathered all of my memories that had anything to do with Russia. This list included movies, music, and art. Once I had a setting for the story I started reading with specific mindset. To my surprise, it was not what I expected. The characters seemed somewhat American and so did the social conditions. Being a communist country I could deduce that the play would give its audience some sot of feel for what it was like. It did. Social aspects are very important and the differences between characters are mostly economical: “There used t be only the gentlefolk’s and the peasants in the country, but now there are these summer visitors.” (Chekhov, 73) After reading this sentence my ideas about communist Russia were confirmed. The play would address the topic and tell the reader what the transition was like.
The other main aspect that came to my mind was the translation. The translator has inevitably touched all their creations. Little parts of his experiences are buried within the text. Not knowing whether this is a good translation or not I have to hope it will do the job. Every language is different and I can think of a lot of expressions in Spanish that do not exist in English. It is a fine line that the translator has to decipher. Hopefully he gets it right.
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