Zombies a riot in Onyx’s ‘Cherry Orchard’

Supposedly Anton Chekhov intended “The Cherry Orchard” to be a farce about the hapless and doomed Russian aristocracy in turn-of-the-century Russia, but instead it has been played as a tragedy from the first production.

Troy Heard perhaps has restored the playwright’s original vision in a version he “recently unearthed” and is directing at the Onyx Theatre, “Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard of the Living Dead,” produced by Table 8 and Off Strip Productions.

Russian serfs as dead souls risen in a zombie apocalypse to eat the aristocracy is a surprisingly apt simile for the lumpenproletariat rising in revolt against the corrupt plutocracy of capitalist Russia — only it’s way funnier.

Heard’s spoof of the somberness of Russian literature opens with the return of the actress Irina Polina Ranevskaya to her ancestral country estate after her third farewell stage tour. Accompanying Ranevskaya is her pretty young daughter, Mauranya Arkadina Masha, whom she hopes to marry off to the young and handsome intellectual, Aleksi Alekseyvich Trofimov. Welcoming the two women and Pepito, their Chihuahua mix (who Ranevskaya acquired during an extended run in Tijuana), is the faithful family servant, Anifisa.

Little does Ranevskaya know that her former lover, Gregorovich Samsonovsky Turgenev, has defrauded her family, which has fallen into genteel poverty, of her beloved estate and its cherry orchard. Even less does she suspect that he has irradiated the local serf cemetery to rise up a new minimum wage workforce to work his newly foreclosed-upon land. As the workers of the world arise, Ranevskaya’s way of life is doomed.

Heard directs his stellar cast with such perfect comic timing you could set an atomic clock to it. Straight lines that wouldn’t read particularly funny on paper are made hilarious by the cast’s comic gestures and facial expressions.

Kellie Wright as Ranevskaya is a comic knockout. She tells Gregorovich that she had an extended run in a brothel in Tijuana because the locals “developed a taste for my Puccini.” In a line about donkeys, she alludes to the historical rumors about Catherine the Great. Masha reports that Stanislavsky said of Ranevskaya’s acting, “Talent such as hers is beyond training.” Ms. Wright goes over the top without overacting. She shows everything through her big, beautiful eyes.

TJ Larsen as Gregorovich makes a marvelous Simon Bar Sinister and holds his own alongside Wright’s dominant stage presence. The two are a comic duo made in heaven.

Brandon Burk, the talented artistic director at the Onyx Theatre, takes a star turn in front of the lights as the young romantic hero Trofimov alongside the passionately serious Masha, played by Stacia Zinkevich, who, of course, wants to go to Moscow. The two almost seem like they are playing it straight and then in one word or gesture, go laugh-out-loud wrong. Zinkervich is a particular stand-out in a cast of stand-outs.

Taliesin McEnaney in the wordless role of Anifisa performs a sight gag that becomes funnier and funnier the longer she sustains it. Then when she changes it up in Act II, she brings down the house. Her performance serves as a unitive thread for the whole play.

Rescue dog Thor in his stage debut as Pepito earns the biggest emotional responses from the audience just by having big cute ears.

The production’s design team, David Sankuer, Jake Copenhaver and TJ Larsen, created a beautiful multi-dimensional set through scenic lighting and sound design. Set dresser Kim Rahi must be especially applauded for the set’s rich detail. Isaiah Urrabazo’s busty women’s costume designs were delightfully funny.

With a cast of half a dozen, Heard cannot replicate the zombie hordes of TV’s “The Walking Dead.” He makes good effect of illusion. The one zombie who does appear is worth a dozen of the others.