The Cherry Orchard Characters

Lubov and MoneyIn Act 2, Lopakhin says of Lubov and her brother, "I've never met such frivolous people as you before, or anybody so unbusinesslike and peculiar" (2.44). He has a point. Chekhov show...

Lopakhin the PeasantLopakhin is the son of a former serf (essentially a slave) who worked on Lubov's estate. He was a drunk and ignorant man who beat Lopakhin. Like his father, Lopakhin isn't an ed...

Trofimov the RevolutionaryWhen Trofimov speaks, it's hard not hear the voice of Chekhov. He talks about work: "everything that is unattainable now will some day be near at hand and comprehensible,...

Gaev the Big BabyLopakhin calls Gaev an old woman, but we think Gaev is more like a big baby. He loves candy, plays air-pool, and still can't dress himself. Fiers continually worries over his choic...

Everyone in the play is a little obsessed with Lubov's seventeen-year-old daughter Anya. Dunyasha calls her "darling" and "pet" (1.32), and Varya calls her "darling" and "pretty one" (1.43). Gaev g...

We don't know about you, but if we had to choose to be someone in this play, it wouldn't be Varya. She has it hard. Nobody calls her "darling" or "pretty one" like they do Anya. Lubov, her own (ado...

Chekhov describes Fiers's first entrance like so: "leaning on a stick, [he] walks quickly across the stage; he has just been to meet Lubov Andreyevna. He wears an old-fashioned livery and a tall ha...

Pischik, Lubov's landowning neighbor, provides some context for the struggles of Lubov's family. Pischik's constant search for money lets us know that the whole community of landowners faces the sa...

Epikhodov offers pretty much straight comic relief from his first entrance in Act 1, when he "enters with a bouquet. He wears a short jacket and brilliantly polished boots which squeak audibly. He...

Oh, Dunyasha. What a classic story, huh? Maid Runs Afoul of Dashing Young Rogue. And Yasha isn't even a nobleman – he's a servant posing as a nobleman.Next to Yasha, Dunyasha probably has the...

In a play that meticulously strives to show both the good and bad in people, Yasha is pretty much all bad. He's so unlikable that we wonder if Chekhov was working out some sort of grudge. An opport...

Charlotta really doesn't fit in. She cultivates eccentricity, traveling with a little dog and doing magic tricks so relentlessly that Anya complains. She is a single governess who teasingly resists...

Various translations call him various things, but the Passerby plays the same role no matter what we call him: a rude awakening for the dreamy aristocrats. The sun has set, the "breaking string" so...

These uninspiring people appear at the party to the disgust of Fiers, who has retained his high standards: "I'm not well," he says. "At our balls some time back, generals and barons and admirals us...