With Uncle Vanya playing across town at the Ensemble and this at the Old Fitzroy, it feels like the pre-eminent portraitist of pre-Revolutionary Russia is having a bit of a moment in Sydney right now. Both productions are well worth your time.

This Cherry Orchard arrives in adapted form, courtesy of Welsh playwright Gary Owen, who transposes the play’s fundamentals to a rambling family home on the Pembrokeshire coast.

It’s 1982, and even in this relatively sheltered corner of the world, the societal changes unleashed by Thatcherism are becoming apparent. The family estate has drifted into insolvency, and the bank is keen to possess the property.

A scheme has been hatched to save it, but that will need the signature of the wayward matriarch Rainey (Deborah Galanos). One of those society girls who grew up wild, she’s now divorced and on a permanent drunken bender.

She’s also flat broke, having blown all her money on a room at the Dorchester.

Amelia Parsonson and Deborah Galanos in The Cherry Orchard. Photo © Braiden Toko

Nervously awaiting her return from London is Rainey’s ineffectual brother Gabriel (Charles Mayer), her daughters Valerie (Jane Angharad)...