THE CHERRY ORCHARD

It’s a curious concept: the blood and guts of a live theatrical experience played out not on the boards but on a screen, relayed via satellite in disarming 2D. But if it’s one that cuts the distance between the stages of London and Sydney down to nil (not to mention the ticket prices), it could well be one we embrace. The National Theatre Live program films in high definition and then broadcasts this image to 400 cinemas around the world, and this month we are to be treated to a show one-part exotic, one-part homegrown: the Sydney Theatre Company’s co-Artistic Director and Mr Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton’s The Cherry Orchard, currently playing at the National Theatre,  London. This Chekhov classic (Upton has quite the yen for Russians of late), stars theatre great Zoe Wanamaker as a faded and bankrupt aristocrat caught between a beloved family estate and the trampling pressures of progress. Appropriate then, that we get to witness the spectacle in this progressive new form of dramatic delivery. (AB)

Jul 17, 2pm, Sydney Theatre, 22 Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, $15, 9250 1999, sydneytheatre.com.au