The Cherry Orchard the three or four outstanding plays by Chekhov, along with "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", and "Uncle Vanya". The play concerns an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. Unresponsive to offers to save the estate, she allows its sale to the son of a former serf; the family leaves to the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down. The story presents themes of cultural futility – both the futile attempts of the aristocracy to maintain its status and of the
Plays of Three Decades "The threat of war began to overshadow the reality of want." It was in response to this threat, motivated especially by the exigency of the Munich Agreement, that Ardrey wrote "Thunder Rock." In his introduction to "Plays of Three Decades" Ardrey writes that he conceived of the play in New York following a long vacation to Nantucket. He wrote the play in New Orleans during the winter and spring of 1939. "Thunder Rock" concerns a journalist, Charleston, who, distraught at the state of the world, withdraws into isolation as a lighthouse attendant. Amid the solitude he conjures in his imagination