THE CHERRY ORCHARD

Paris 1900. Ania, the 16-year-old daughter of Lyubov Ranevsky, comes to the French capital to take her beautiful, fragile mother back to Russia. Five years earlier, when her young son drowned, Lyubov left her family estate with its famous cherry orchard, and moved to France with her lover, who, after going through all her savings, left her. They return home to find the cherry orchard in bloom, in stark contrast to the family's finances. Lopahin, a coarse but wealthy merchant, whose father used to be a serf on the estate, suggests that the land on which the cherry orchard sits be developed and sold for summer housing. But for the Ranevskys, the cherry orchard represents the pleasant past, before the mysterious forces of the changing times threatened their idyllic existence...