Trofimov: 'All Russia is our orchard'
In the twilight of a country estate that is about to be sold, the perpetual student Trofimov walks in the overgrown garden with young Anya, the daughter of the house. Fired by his vision of a better future, he urges her to break free of the guilt-soaked past her family represents. He wants to win her over to a life of work, freedom, and hope.
Varya's afraid we may fall in love with each other and won't get away from us for days on end.
Her narrow mind won't allow her to understand that we are above love.
To escape all the petty and deceptive things which prevent our being happy and free, that is the aim and meaning of our lives.
Forward!
We go irresistibly on to that bright star which burns there, in the distance!
Don't lag behind, friends!
All Russia is our orchard.
The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it.
Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn't something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk?
Don't you hear voices...?
Oh, it's awful, your orchard is terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions.
Still, at any rate, we've left those two hundred years behind us.
So far we've gained nothing at all—we don't yet know what the past is to be to us—we only philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka.
For it's so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour.
Understand that, Anya.
How to Play It
Trofimov wants to recruit Anya to a cause. Speak to change her, not to lecture—every image of the past is aimed at freeing her from it.
Balance the two colours: soaring idealism ('All Russia is our orchard') and genuine unease ('doesn't something human look at you from every cherry'). The orchard is both beautiful and haunted by the serfs who worked it.
Keep the engine forward. Short imperatives—'Forward!', 'Don't lag behind, friends!', 'Understand that, Anya'—are rallying cries; let them lift the pace rather than sink into reverie.
Want Will to Coach You Through It?
A monologue is a two-person scene where the other person never speaks. Working it 1-on-1 with a working actor is the fastest way to make it land.