El Nogalar

I feel it’s necessary to begin my El Nogalar blog by first mentioning Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.  After all, it is a take on it and seems only fair to the somewhat-predecessor.  In regards to my thoughts on The Cherry Orchard: I loved the storyline.  I thought the play was able to demonstrate a very interesting take on the struggle of identity that comes along with change.  It does this through the complexity of its characters, most specifically, Lubov’s character.  The story gives such a heartbreaking portrayal of her.  Unable to face the reality that has come through tragedies in her life, she chooses to pretend they do not exist and has this beauty and grace about her.  I love characters like this and that is most likely one of my main attractions to the play.  It’s such a timeless story of running from your problems that while reading it, I couldn’t help but think how much I would actually love to see it be remade into a movie.  I know this can often be a terrible thing for a play you enjoy, but I think it could do very well.  Through the storyline and each character’s complexity, Chekhov accomplishes the illustration of a play that paints a tragic picture, edged with an alluring humour that underlies it.

Now that I have gone on my short tangent of my admiration of The Cherry Orchard, I feel I can give my opinion of Tanya Saracho’s El Nogalar.  My first thoughts on the play: unfortunate.  I really did not enjoy it.  I realize it’s supposed to simply be a very loose modern take on the play’s basic ideas, but it should not even be compared in the least.  The writing was poorly done, especially with its forced pop-culture references.  With all do respect to Saracho, especially since I know nothing else about her or her work, the play reminded me of something a junior high student might have been assigned to do in a creative writing class.