Chekhov’s last play is notoriously difficult to stage. If the characters’ converging and often confusing narratives are to make any sense, the audience needs to feel the overarching presence of the old house and its beloved orchard. Designer Anne Fleischle uses transparent Japanese-style hanging screens to suggest the cherry blossom and scattered pieces of furniture swathed in dustsheets to suggest the faded grandeur of the house. But the bare thrust stage of the Swan Theatre, ideal for 17^th century declamation, is a challenge for poetic naturalism. And while the design looks attractive, we barely feel the presence of the ancient trees. In this sense, the beating heart of the drama is somehow absent and the ominous sound of the axe near the ending loses impact.

Writer Laura Wade has created a modern version of the play, sticking to the essence of the action while cutting down the long speeches and giving the language a contemporary edge. This is the new normal of modern theatre, and she is an accomplished playwright who does it well. But in bringing out the universal themes of loss and change, there are changes that grate. When the passer-by runs in and begs for money, the reference to Russia is abandoned. Instead, he quotes from the famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…’ Immediately this arouses thoughts of US immigration and a range of related issues. But people weren’t queuing up to come to Czarist Russia. They were desperate to get out. And so, in attempting to touch on the universal, we lose the particularity that gives sense to the writing. One other alteration that jars is the overly sexualised flirtation between the housemaid Dunyasha and the servant Yasha.

Thus, director Tamara Harvey’s production is not for purists. But admirers of Kenneth Branagh will not be disappointed by his forceful, yet nuanced portrayal of the peasant turned businessman Lopakhin. One of the two great characters in the drama, he gives him a faultless Irish accent, distinguishing his character’s origins from that of the formerly wealthy landowners. Lopakhin is often seen as unsympathetic, but Branagh brings out his contradictions and insecurities, his problems with personal relationships and his long-standing infatuation with the beautiful, impoverished Ranyevskaya. Helen Hunt is in many respects ideal in the role of his counterpart, graceful, soft hearted, elegant and wilfully blind to the economic forces about to destroy her ancestral home. But the decision to maintain the actor’s native American accent feels odd. True, Ranyevskaya has lived abroad for several years, and her brother Gaev (Bill Pullman) has a similar inflection, but given that the rest of her family speak differently, the plethora of accents can be distracting to listen to.

Chekhov gives us extraordinary characters who meet but never quite engage. He described his play as a ‘comedy’ and there are moments of great humour, though in this version the humour tends to be exaggerated and occasionally frantic with a consequent loss of poignancy. Happily, the powerful ending remains unchanged. Michael Elwyn is deeply moving as the old retainer, Firs.  In the final scene he wanders onto an empty stage, alone, forgotten and dying. He is quintessentially Russian, in his costume, his bearing, his manners, and yet through the detail of his portrayal and the depth of the interpretation, this suffering does feel genuinely universal.