Adelaide Festival. Festival Theatre. 27 Feb 2026
Forty years ago, Adelaide Festival director Anthony Steel was under the gun with controversial apprehension erupting about Shakespeare's Richard III being performed in the Georgian language by the Rusteveli Theatre Compay from Tbilisi.
But when Ramaz Chkhikvadze strode the stage, Adelaide recognised it was seeing one of the greatest living actors of his time and Shakespeare was still Shakespeare in Georgian. And it was wonderful.
Anthony Steel was in the opening night audience for Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in Korean and perchance he was having a shadow of À la recherche du temps perdu (remembrance of things past). I was.
Surely the shrill breakneck torrents of Korean delivery could not be compatible with the dark European passions of Chekhov’s characters?
And how very strange they turn out to be in the 2026 Festival’s centrepiece presentation of Simon Stone’s The Cherry Orchard from the Korean LG Art Centre.
Indeed, the audience struggles to keep pace with the rapid-fire and often strident cadences emanating from the actors as they banter and bicker and party through the final days of the family’s home - no longer a Russian rural property but a modern Seoul world. They are voluble characters with potent politics to convey in mighty highbrow speeches as well as family purposes and cross-purposes. Identifying the actors whilst also reading the surtitles is almost an acrobatic attention battle.
But, as with the phenomenon in Georgian, the might of the actors and the emotional complexity of the play unhinge the language barrier and it is Chekov which arises from this seemingly contrary context.
And at the grand denouement, acclaim is in the air, and the audience rises to its feet.
One has loved and hated Doyoung Song, the mother, played by multi-award-winning actress Doyen Jeon, as she conflicts and resolves with her children. One has disdained and pitied Hyunsook Kang, her adopted daughter, as played by the wonderful Moon Choi, albeit both performers’ voices sometimes invoke angry chickens. Korean and English tonals seem at times so vastly different; less so among the men of whom Haesoo Park shows his matinee idol qualities in portraying Doosik Hwang, the chauffeur’s son who has risen to the heights of wealth and success to supersede his former superiors. He performs one scene smoking a victory cigarette which is a triumph just in itself.
The set by Saul Kim is almost Ikea on steroids, an A-frame modern architectural wonder steepled in stairs up and down which the actors scamper with enviable ease and alacrity. An upstairs bedroom reveals private scenes of love and generational restlessness while the broad downstairs open plan accommodates the highs and lows of family life. Sliding glass doors are wielded as action uses the stage at large, the characters seeming tiny on its scale, sometimes even perched on the peak. Indeed, Stone plays the blocking with ever-gratifying aesthetic impact.
There’s soundscape, too, of course, mirroring the highs and lows of the narrative and a fascinating black “snowfall” which coats the stage as the moods collide.
It is a handsome, uneasy work, daring a la Stone, and for lovers of Chekhov, both puzzling and demanding,
Therein, of course, it sits as a classic Festival piece, to be implanted in the city’s arts memory.
Meanwhile, Festival Centre CEO Kate Gould’s new foodie policy is being met with astonishment by patrons unready to meet the clever quickie snacks on sale with or without pre-order around the foyer. And then there are those thrilled to find fine dining up and running in the new Angry Penguin restaurant.
It is all a hub happening with a verve and vigour it has not seen in many a year.
Samela Harris
When: 27 Feb to 1 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
