Dear Kind Email Opener,
These words come to you from my usual spot, tucked away at the very back left-hand side of the theatre, watching our futuristic world take its final shape. I’m jealous of the actors’ costumes so I’m wearing a kurta I last slipped into for my sister’s wedding exactly four years ago.
It was also around this time four years ago that I was watching my last play, An Adventure (during which I was also crammed into the very back left hand side of the Bush Theatre). One of the actors from that production reminded me that it was then that I first told her of my idea to write a version of The Cherry Orchard with a South Asian cast that was set on a spaceship.
Of course, not every idea you have makes it all the way to the stage but the ones that survive the often long gestations tend to be the ones that continue to reveal new facets to themselves as you go on. When I began, the playful conceit felt like the most compelling aspect — Chekhov would grumpily insist that The Cherry Orchard was a comedy and I was certain that my (Brown) Chekhov in Space as it was once titled would bring this story back to its intentions.
During a lockdown spent alone, I ruefully found myself at last connecting with the aspect of Chekhov’s work that had felt most distant in the modern world — his repeated trope of characters feeling isolated and bored out of their skulls – and how the spaceship setting made this all the more tangible.
What fascinates me now is how — in contrast to our increasingly polarised communities — The Cherry Orchard is a portrait of the commons as a whole, where every flawed inhabitant is rendered with compassion. In what feels like a deeply unfashionable move, it even has compassion for those with privilege as they struggle to accept that a new world is coming.
Crucially, it does this without engaging in the fallacy of giving “both sides” of an argument equal merit. While Chekhov clearly has some reservations about those who would seek to lead a change, the society presented in The Cherry Orchard is neither viable nor desirable.
Through this combination, the play makes its points while also creating an emotional texture that feels truthful to the messiness of lived experience. All of us care for people who it might be difficult to justify to others. All of us know what it is to find our grief, hope and love in socially inconvenient places. All of us know the strain this creates between what we know we should want and what we actually do want. In my version of the play, I have tried to shape this conflict in a way that resonates more strongly with the country that we live in today.
Which is all great, you might say. But… why are they all brown? And why the hell is it on a spaceship?
Being honest? A large part of the reasoning was simply…f*** it, why not? And, to my eternal gratitude, The Yard is a theatre that’s more than willing to embrace an ethos of “f*** it, why not?”
This holds more political potency than you might imagine.
To say “f*** it” is a shrug, but it’s a shrug that removes a weight from your shoulders. Weight that has stopped you heading where you need to, weight formed from historical assumptions, weight that you might not have even realised you were carrying.
For a lot of my life, I’ve unwittingly fed a pernicious, widespread assumption — that the stories that centre people who look like me must justify their place with a righteous purpose. That the importance of its disruption to a norm must be signalled. And look, that disruption can be dazzling. And truthful. And outright life-changing. But it can also create a trap of expectation for both our artists and our audiences.
In such an environment, “f*** it” is a vital first step towards attempting to articulate a different future. It is to move away from being satisfied with telling an anti-story – again, as profound, urgent and joyful as that can be – and seeking to tell an entirely new one. That aforementioned political potency is in being able to be casual with your existence, for your body to not have to be a radical space if you don’t wish it to be, to exist with dignity and specificity without needing to be Capital I Important.
Which brings me to the spaceship.
Because, strange as it is to say, those have always been important to me. I’ve always found a sense of warmth and wonder in science fiction. As a kid, I would pour over designs of futuristic vessels, excited about the romantic possibilities that they spoke of. Where would their inhabitants go? What would they see? Who would they go on those adventures with? Chekhov’s characters are so heavily rooted in their geography that it’s crucial to understand the lure of those places to fully understand the characters.
An old country house holds no sentimental appeal to me. But the idea of giving up a ship that’s protected you and your ancestors for generations…that I could get. That felt like a metaphor that spoke to my family’s immigration story. That felt like something fun which came from me but honoured Chekhov’s intentions.
To end, I just want you to know how much I’ve loved making this play. After four years, it’s now left my brain, is currently in the actors’ hands and will soon — with any luck — sit in your hearts. I hope that when you come to see this story from the past, you will enjoy its re-imagination of the future and understand the ways in which it speaks to the present.
But, most of all, I hope that you have a bloody good time.
With you, somewhere out there,
Vinay Patel
Book your tickets to The Cherry Orchard here.
