The Cherry Orchard (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre) by Anton Chekhov/A new version by Stephen Karam

Wow—just wow! Problematically, this isn’t a good wow it’s an “I can’t believe I just sat through that” wow.

This production of A Cherry Orchard has everything going for it-A gorgeous and talented leading lady in Diane Lane, a supporting cast worthy of the adjective (Joel Gray, Chuck Cooper, Celia Keenan-Bolger) and a book by the genius who wrote The Humans, one of my favorite plays of the year.  Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to save, or even slightly redeem it.

This Chekhov classic is always timely, with its themes of love, loss and the struggle to accept the reality of the situation in which a person, a family or a community sit.   This version, however, lacks the gravitas which can make The Cherry Orchard tear at the heart.

For some reason, this Orchard is played entirely as farce, with Ms. Lane skittering between emotions like a schizophrenic and John Glover, playing her brother, as the clown who’s every utterance is designed to pull a laugh from the audience.

The empathy and emotional camaraderie that this beautiful play normally evokes in me were absent and the over-the-top silliness, much to my regret, ruined a story which is normally beautiful in its humanity.