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
Cherry Sisters in modest circumstances. The Cherry sisters were the daughters of Thomas and Laura Cherry. The family was composed of eight children: Ella, Elizabeth, Addie, Effie, and Jessie, their brother Nathan, and two additional siblings who died at young ages. Ella, the eldest, was born in the early 1850s in Massachusetts, but the remainder of the children were born in Iowa, and were raised on a farm in Linn County. The Cherry Sisters' vaudeville act was formed in the early 1890s, after the death of their parents and the disappearance of their brother Nathan. Originally all five sisters were involved, however,