Depending on how Russian your sense of humor is, Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” could be classified as either the darkest of comedies or a tragedy that sometimes manages to be mildly humorous. The play follows a past-their-prime family of Russian aristocrats who are forced to sell their eponymous orchard, which they spent most of their lives ignoring and neglecting. But once it’s time to actually part ways, they become overwhelmed by morose nostalgia as they struggle to let go of something that they assumed would always be there. It’s both a brilliant satire of wealth-induced decadence and a somber exploration of how humans struggle to say goodbye at the ends of their eras.
So it’s fitting that, whether she knows it or not, Lillian Hall’s (Jessica Lange) upcoming turn as Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” will be her final performance. Michael Cristofer’s new HBO film introduces Hall to us as a quintessential Broadway diva, a Patti LuPone type universally acknowledged as the “first lady of the American theater.” Few professions in the entertainment industry are kinder to aging women than Broadway stardom, and Hall’s status as a theatrical matriarch has turned this Chekhov revival into the hottest event of the New York theater season.
But final dress rehearsals are derailed by chaos amid Upper West Side culture vulture buzz about the production — which also marks the Broadway debut of edgy theater director David Flemming (Jesse Williams), receiving his first taste of establishment legitimacy after years of being hailed as a rising genius. As Lillian struggles to remember her lines and blocking, the show’s backers are forced to consider the possibility that she’s no longer capable of carrying a Broadway production. As they weigh the risks of replacing her with a less bankable but more competent understudy, she takes a cognitive exam that reveals she has an early form of dementia.
It’s the kind of harrowing diagnosis that usually prompts people to retreat into the comforting embrace of family. But it forces Lillian to consider the trade-offs that accompany a lifetime of prioritizing her acting career over everyone in her personal life. The acclaimed actress was always able to write off her icy relationships with her adult children as a natural consequence of spending time with her “real” family in the theater community. But if she can’t memorize lines anymore, she faces the possibility of losing her life’s work without anything to show for it. So against the advice of her doctors and family, she decides to put everything she has into rehearsals with the hope of taking the stage one last time.
Elisabeth Seldes Annacone’s script gives Lange plenty to work with, and the actress — currently starring in her own Broadway production with Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play” — gives a rich performance that shows why she’s still at the top of her game. Lillian spends much of the film in an ephemeral stage of early dementia in which she knows who she is and what she’s doing, but the world gradually starts to look more and more confusing. Lange surrounds the character with an aura of ultra-politeness that you’d expect from someone so focused on outward appearances, but reveals more vulnerability as Lillian’s world slips away.
A lifetime of memorizing monologues from America’s great playwrights starts to bleed into Lillian’s everyday life, as she occasionally speaks in dialogue from “The Cherry Orchard” and other classic plays as she struggles to separate performance from reality. It becomes clear that, for all of her insistence on using art to tell the truth, Lillian’s entire life was something of a performance. The film occasionally shifts into a documentary format, with Lillian and her family reflecting on the sacrifices that her life in the theater necessitated and the ways that her determination to embody the role of a diva cost her the ability to play any other role offstage adequately.
While Lillian is often haunted by ghosts of her past and present (including Pierce Brosnan, whose role as the retired actor living next to Lillian sees him playing a siren of geriatric handsomeness who is constantly tempting her), the film is ultimately most interested in celebrating the irrational levels of devotion that live theater inspires in the people who make it. While it doesn’t pull punches about the challenges that lie ahead, “The Great Lillian Hall” ultimately makes it clear that its protagonist is lucky to have something that’s so hard to let go. But just like Chekhov’s timeless stone fruit heirs, that realization only comes to Lillian after she causes endless damage to everyone around her.
Grade: B
“The Great Lillian Hall” will air on HBO and stream on Max on Friday, May 31 at 8 p.m. ET.
