The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov's masterpiece about a family on The Edge of ruin-and a country on the brink of revolution. The story of Lyubov Ranevskaya (Lane) and her family's return to their fabled orchard to forestall its foreclosure, the play captures a people-and a world-in transition, and presents us with a picture of humanity in all its glorious folly. By turns tragic and funny, The Cherry Orchard still stands as one of the great plays of the modern era since it was first produced in Moscow in 1904.