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Catalunya Invisible: Contemporary Drama In Barcelona, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

During the winter of 2000, Lluís Pasqual staged a Catalan version of Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard at Barcelona's Teatre Lliure, the historic home of Catalonia's most stable, accomplished, and distinguished repertory theatre company. In Chekov's play, Madame Lyobov Andreyevna Ranyevskaya, an emblem of the fading elegance and dwindling supremacy of the Russian aristocracy, is compelled by her situation of financial despair to sell her estate and cherry orchard to the nouveau-riche Lopakhin and then return to Paris on the eve of the Revolution. The orchard that was once admired for its beauty eventually will be destroyed in order to …