★★★★½
Anton Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard in 1903. It premiered in Moscow in 1904 and was his final play. It arrived at a turning point in Russian history. Former serfs were rising. Aristocratic landowners were falling. The old order could no longer survive on inherited privilege and cheap labour.
More than a century later, director Simon Stone transplants that story to modern Seoul. The result feels uncannily timely. And deeply Korean.
Presented by Adelaide Festival and produced by LG Arts Center, this reinterpretation merges Chekhov’s Russia with contemporary South Korea. Mentions of Netflix replace talk of billiards. Text messages interrupt conversations. Golf swings replace idle aristocratic hobbies. Drivers and personal assistants stand where manual labourers once did. The orchard is now corporate real estate. The class struggle has simply changed costume.
Korean storytelling has dominated the past decade. Film. Television. Theatre. It has proven uniquely adept at skewering capitalism. This production leans into that strength. A chaebol family is collapsing under debt. A rising middle class circles. A former chauffeur’s son returns wealthy and strategic. The cycle turns.
The bones of Chekhov remain. Doyoung Song returns home after years away, grieving the loss of her son. Her family’s company teeters on bankruptcy. The ancestral house is under threat. But this is no dusty museum piece. It feels alive. Urgent. Politically sharp.
Doyeon Jeon anchors the production as Doyoung. It marks her return to the stage after 27 years. She carries both glamour and fragility. Her Doyoung is brittle. Alcohol-soaked. Haunted. Wealth offers no protection against grief. Her scenes recalling her late son cut through the satire with real ache.
Opposite her, Haesoo Park as Doosik Hwang is magnetic. He is the son of a chauffeur turned corporate conqueror. His quiet confidence masks strategic ruthlessness. When he reveals he has bought the family home, the audience gasps. Then laughs. It is brutal. And deserved.
Byunghoon Yoo’s Youngho provides some of the evening’s biggest laughs. A drunken oaf. A walking symbol of useless inherited entitlement. The comedy lands hard. In this era, the fall of the elite is not tragic. It is absurd.
That may be Stone’s boldest stroke. Purists may bristle at his liberties. Yet this version may be closer to Chekhov’s spirit than many reverent revivals. Chekhov insisted The Cherry Orchard was a comedy. Too often it is staged as solemn tragedy. Here, the laughter is loud. Sometimes uncomfortable. Often cathartic.
The audience clearly sides with Donglim, the idealistic tutor railing against corporations. His ideological rants about moral responsibility and systemic change feel pointed. We live in an age of tech billionaires and disproportionate power. The parallels are obvious. As royal houses wobble and economic transitions accelerate, the play lands with bite.
The set is the production’s visual triumph. Designed by Saul Kim, it resembles a house fused with a stock market graph. One side rises steadily. The other plunges. The slope becomes a staircase. Characters climb and descend throughout. Their physical positions mirror their social standing. At times they teeter near the edge. It is elegant. Symbolic. Unmissable.
Lighting by James Farncombe sharpens the contrasts; it tinges blue during sadness, and orange as the sun sets on an era. Youngkyu Jang’s music underscores both tension and farce but turns industrial and harsh as the show ends with a call for an uprising. A Korean acoustic version of Johnny Cash’s Nine Inch Nails cover, Hurt is an apt soundtrack to an empire turning to dust.
If there is a criticism, it lies in pace. The opening reunion scene is chaotic by design. Conversations overlap on different levels of the house. The dialogue fires rapidly. For those relying on surtitles, it can feel overwhelming. Nuance risks being lost in the speed. If you spoke Korean, it likely feels exhilarating rather than taxing. Still, it requires focus.
Yet even in the chaos, the emotional core holds. Hyunsook’s pain as an adopted daughter lands quietly. Haena’s yearning for maternal approval resonates. When Doyoung’s grief erupts, the room stills.
Loss of family is to be mourned. Loss of privilege is not. The play understands the difference.
As the bulldozer arrives and the house falls, Doosik declares a new era. The cycle resets. Chekhov’s Russia and modern Seoul collapse into one another. The fact that they align so neatly says something sobering about human nature.
History changes costume. Power rearranges itself. The orchard is always sold.
The Cherry Orchard is presented by LG Arts Center and runs to 1 March at the Festival Theatre as part of 2026 Adelaide Festival.
Tickets: https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=CHERRYOR26
Website: https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/whats-on/season-2026/the-cherry-orchard
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/adelaidefestival/ and https://www.instagram.com/lgartscenter/
Photo credits: Jack Fenby
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One response to “Review: The Cherry Orchard 2026 Adelaide Festival”
Loved the stage and the acting wa good….but, reading the surtitles was distracting as unlike an opera the play is dialogue dense. My friend and I had no idea who was who until at least half way through the first set. The opening was particularly chaotic.
I’m afraid we did not stay past intermission. If we spoke Korean we probably would’ve.