week, graced by a theatre full of eagerly anticipating patrons.

And the culture-hungry crowd that piled into Daylesford's intimate auditorium on Monday evening weren't disappointed.

The BMDS ensemble cast pulled off a production that, quite simply, gave Anton Chekhov's profound writings a new vitality and energy.

The acting, which contained some outstanding performances, was complemented by a simple but ingenious set.

Written in 1905, "The Cherry Orchard'' presents an insightful, moving view of pre-revolutionary Russian society in a state of flux.

The action begins when members of an aristocratic family return to their country estate to find it in danger of being mortgaged. Not able to pay their debts, the family and their friends contemplate the thought of the property falling into the hands of the emerging class of recently emancipated slaves or serfs.

Chekhov clearly intended each of his characters to have their own souls.

Over the course of about two hours, their words and actions tell individual stories of love, hate, fear, ignorance and anger intertwined masterfully in a story with epic connotations, of not just a family, but an entire class of people on the threshold of losing their livlihoods.

It could be said that such a play holds key significance to Bermuda, which has recently undergone an overhaul in Government and is, like the rest of the world, steadily approaching that perceived watershed of the Year 2000.

Many believe that "The Cherry Orchard'' is a piece that has just as much significance in any time as it did almost a hundred years ago.

One such person is this production's director Ms McCulloch, who ventured: "This play has a strength and a beauty that will always remain valuable.'' She added: "Chekhov has such truth and integrity in his writing. We can learn as much from his characters today and they did when he originally wrote the play''.

If an effective way of judging the success of a production is by examining how well it puts across the intentions of the playwright and director, then we can, at least partially, rely on Ms McCulloch's views as a guide.

Did this particular staging give actors the opportunity to put across their "truth and integrity''? Did the actors themselves successfully present an ensemble of, as Ms McCulloch calls them, "complex human relationships''? Can the audience really understand and appreciate their humanity? The answer to these searching questions, in my opinion, is a resounding "yes''.

In a piece which relies so much on a healthy relationship between setting and the people in it, between physical space and character growth, BMDS has managed to get the balance nearly perfect.

The simple but ingenious set mentioned earlier actually portrays two locations, inside the house and outside on the grounds of the estate.

The three scenes inside are presented with efficiency but with enough small, hardly noticeable details as to denote the passage of time and to give the sitting room that individual atmosphere.

Outside the back wall is entirely taken away, revealing an only partially previously seen cherry orchard.

Actors make great use of the set, moving around it as if it really is their home and creating an atmosphere of familiarity and comfort that is gone by the end of the piece because of the house's changing hands.

Whether really exploring those "complex human relationships'' in pairs or coming together in large groups to present an intensive montage of distinctly different personalities, the players successfully give insights into their individual characters, each of whom, in turn, contribute to the audience's overall understanding of the issues.

And while each of the characters undoubtably has, and was meant to have, a personality of their own, they do present archetypes of various groups of people in Russia at the time.

The loving and sensitive but traditional Madame Ranyevskaia represents the old, aristocratic families and the practical and knowledgable yet magnanimous business man Lopakhin represents the new class of rich peasants who were just beginning to establish their presence in Russia at the time.

And in this kind of archetypical individuality, the story comes across without effort.

Comic moments are juxtaposed with instances of poignant sadness, creating an all-too-human mixture of joy and despair for those fortunate enough to experience it.

Two performers who really stood out are Jo Shane and Thomas Saunders, who played Madame Ranyevskaia and Trofimov respectively.

Their energy and calm conviction were put across especially well during their scene together during Act two, scene one where they discuss the meaning and importance of love.

Another notable performance was that of John Zuill, who played Lopakhin.

A real energy was given to the character with his grandiose movements and that loud, amused voice which harbours underneath a true resentment of once being "owned'' by the very family he is trying to save.

In the end, it is Lopakhin who actually buys the estate from the family and again the audience is torn between mixed feelings of joy, heralding in a new period of freedom, and deep sadness for those memories that will be lost with the selling of the estate.

The points are hammered home by the sound at the end of the cherry orchard being cut down, tree by tree.

Thus ends a play replete with profundity in both emotion and thought and a production that gives it a voice and a soul appropriate for today's world.

Ben Greening Top play: Jo Shane (sitting) and Kate Huntington (kneeling) in The Cherry Orchard.