Working from the frame of Anton Chekhov’s prescient comic drama, adaptor-director Simon Stone transplants the story of a wealthy family’s dissolution to contemporary Seoul – and, more pointedly, into these global times of collapsing certainty.

Doyoung Song (played by Doyeon Jeon) – Chekhov’s Ranyevskaya – returns to the family compound after five years in New York, grieving a lost son and trailing the scent of a life lived recklessly.

The house stands unchanged. South Korea does not. The old hierarchies are buckling; public deference to authority and inherited privilege is eroding. The family’s sprawling conglomerate, once as politically potent as it was profitable, is sliding into bankruptcy and disgrace.

Into this whirlpool strides Doosik Hwang (Haesoo Park), the son of the family’s chauffeur and now a successful businessman. He has a plan to salvage the family name – and perhaps a portion of its fortune – if they will accept his terms.

But can a chaebol dynasty take advice from an erstwhile underling? Can it see beyond its own entitlement far enough to survive?

Doyeon Jeon and Haesoo Park in The Cherry Orchard. Photo © LG Arts Center