Daylesford Theatre, in the role of Gayev in Chekhov's classic The Cherry Orchard. The Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society's performance is a new version directed by Jane McCulloch and will be produced by Denise Grubesich.

As first night approaches, John presents some thoughts of a non-actor.

*** Have you ever tried your hand at acting? I am, I confess, not an actor -- but I am married to a wonderful actress.

Although I've done a lot of things on stages in my life, I haven't acted in a play since leaving school. But as I watched my wife Jo, who has a teaching qualification in drama, gradually growing into bigger and bigger roles on stage at BMDS, and having so much fun acting with the Triangle Theatre Company, I recently began to feel like trying my hand at acting alongside her.

One of the remarkable things about a theatrical society like BMDS is that it can give people like me (and, potentially, you) the chance of trying our hand at acting in the company of far more experienced people.

I am a writer interested in every kind of writing. Earlier this year, following my interest in writing for the theatre, I attended a two day Directing Workshop at BMDS, given by Jane McCulloch.

As a result of the tiny bit of acting I did at that workshop, I was later fortunate enough to be asked to audition for a part in the forthcoming production of The Cherry Orchard , the last and perhaps the most famous play written in 1903 by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

Jane McCulloch has had an extremely distinguished career in the theatre. She has many projects in the pipeline which involve very high profile actors and musicians, but she's also a very personable lady.

Somehow, despite my inexperience and despite the fact that Jane is far more used to directing such luminaries as Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi than working with the likes of me, I didn't feel intimidated when I auditioned for her on BMDS' Daylesford stage.

And when she was kind enough to offer me the chance to play the part of Gayev, the brother of Mme. Ranevskaya, the landowner of the estate that includes the family's beloved cherry orchard, it says a great deal for Jane's easy-going professional manner that I didn't hesitate to accept, despite the fact that the role is quite a big one for a newcomer to the stage.

Now that we are deep into the rehearsal process, I'm finding out just how much hard work goes into making a production run smoothly in the theatre, and also how much fun the rehearsals -- and relaxing in the bar afterwards -- can be.

I've been a budding actor for how long now? Three weeks? And already I'm quite exhausted! My wife Jo, has masses of lines to learn for the part of Mme. Ranevskaya. I've got rather fewer lines to work on, but still, it's surprising how hard it is to get the words to stick in my mind.

My character is an oddly aristocratic old fellow, and everything he says is frankly a bit confused: there's not a great deal of logic to it. He speechifies away at every opportunity -- at one point even addressing a lengthy soliloquy to a piece of furniture, after which everyone else in the room clearly thinks he's beginning to lose the plot.

"Dear Uncle ... do be quiet!'', "Oh Uncle, you're at it again!'', his nieces Anya (to be played by Kate Harrington) and Varya (Monica Dobbie) cry in alarm.

Gayev, in fact, has three women in the play telling him to shut up at frequent intervals -- which is a bit too close to home. My wife and two daughters already do enough of that kind of thing without me needing the same treatment in a play.

But at least Gayev, unlike me, can take his frustrations out on the servants -- on Fiers, the bumbling, 87-year-old butler (Ray Moore), and particularly on Yasha (Paul Woolgar), his sister's valet, who he continually picks on, telling him that he "stinks of the kitchen''.

The only members of the household staff Gayev doesn't scold are the pretty chambermaid Dooniasha (Happy Lindsay), and Yepihodov, the estate clerk (Phillip Jones) -- and he only refrains from weighing into them because he ignores them completely.

Thinking over the list of my stage character's obvious shortcomings as a human being, I really do hope it wasn't a case of type-casting that led our illustrious director to offer me the part.

The interesting thing about Chekhov as a writer is that he never editorialises by using his characters' voices to project his own ideas. He never actually shows us the most dramatic events onstage, but only reveals their consequences through the reactions of those whom the dramatic events will affect. Chekhov never sides entirely with the opinion of any whose conversations we overhear as the play proceeds.

What we get from the play, in its magnificent entirety, is an overall view of a certain situation, seen from many sides. One of the reasons the play has become a classic is that it can thus be presented in so many different ways, according to a particular director's vision.

In the case of my character, it's just as well his views can't be identified as being those of Chekhov himself, because most of what Gayev says is well-meaning nonsense. As a writer learning about writing for actors through trying on the role of being an actor, I've been surprised to discover that it's actually harder to learn Gayev's kind of obtuse verbiage than it is to remember something that has more logical connective tissue to it.

I've now just about managed to get my major speeches down. But as an actor you are always waiting for cues and you have to know when they're coming. So, if you are onstage quite a bit, you really have to know the whole play, or at least the geography of the scenes you are in, so that you don't get lost as the dialogue flashes by you, streaming from the mouths of the other actors.

Then, of course, (duh!), you have to learn to 'walk and chew gum at the same time', as it were: you have to make your entrances and exits and move around the stage, generally 'acting natural', as you speak your lines. It's not the same as just reciting your role to yourself in the privacy of your own living room.

Today, I confess, I actually practised some of my lines aloud, but under my breath, in a supermarket on Front Street as I wheeled my trolley through the aisles of canned fruit and breakfast cereal. If you saw me there, my profound apologies. I hope I didn't startle the children.

Clearly the character of Gayev is taking me over: this play will have me talking to bookcases, too, by the time it's finished.

Why would I do something as crazy thing as mumbling my lines in a supermarket? Well, I wanted to see if I could still remember my part while a lot of other things were going on around me. My wife tells me there can be distractions for actors on a stage. We often have a number of actors on stage. Daylesford is a very intimate theatre; and the actors can clearly see the playgoers in the first few rows, who may be fidgeting about or even (heaven forbid) whispering to each other.

Rehearsals have been such a revealing process of discovery for me, that I can't help wondering how the actors who have much longer speeches are managing. How are they coping with the process of learning their lines? John Zuill has a very big part.

He plays the peasant, Lopakhin, who grew up the son of a serf on Ranevskaya's estate -- where he wasn't even allowed in the kitchen of the main house. As a child, Lopakhin went to school without shoes, but by the time the play starts, he's a confident businessman, well on the way to becoming a millionaire.

Faced with the prospect of having to propose to Varya, the woman in his life, Lopakhin still struggles desperately with himself, even though he knows she loves him. He's clearly better at making money than he is at making love.

Thomas Saunders plays Trofimov, the eternal student who airily considers himself to be completely above love. Thomas is an experienced actor who seems to have a great facility for memorising lines -- which is just as well.

Trofimov was the tutor to Mme. Ranevskaya's son. He speaks at considerable length to the family, explaining his seemingly plausible ideas on political philosophy and social justice. But somehow, there's just a sneaking suspicion that he may be talking as much nonsense as old uncle Gayev, albeit in a more idealistic vein and with more intellectual assurance.

So who talks sense among the characters in this play? Chekhov doesn't tell us.

Each of the many and varied characters is presented to us as one possibility among the many a human life may take -- and there, but for fortune, go you or I.

Barbara Jones plays Charlotta, an eccentric and existentially perplexed German governess who is much given to curious conjuring tricks -- as well as to carrying a shotgun about. And John Thompson, as Pishchik, the gouty old neighbour, is forever trying to borrow money to pay off his mortgage. Barbara and John are veterans of the Daylesford stage, and, lucky them, don't seem to have any problems with their lines.

Jo Shane, my wife, really is rather grand in rehearsals, playing Mme.

Ranevskaya as a woman on the verge of going to pieces, her mind flitting from one thing to another as she keeps on giving her money away and spending recklessly, even as her estate is about to be put up for auction to pay her debts.

Can she and her brother somehow manage to salvage the situation before the deadline set for the auction of their childhood home? It seems unlikely, but you never know. Ranevskaya appears totally irresponsible but she loves everyone and everyone loves her. Surely someone will intervene at the last minute to help her? But who? Even her inept and bumbling brother, Gayev, has a good heart, hidden somewhere or other under his arrogant crustiness. There must be some solution to their dilemma, which is in essence a universal dilemma: how will we cope when confronted with the loss of the things we love -- a loss that we all ultimately have to face? As Ranevskaya pleads with Trofimov: "Don't judge me too harshly. You don't know, you haven't been tested yet yourself.'' We who witness her suffering may feel it hard not to judge her, and the other characters of Chekov's final masterpiece, and to find them wanting as human beings, each in their own way.

But before we rush to judge these characters -- however strange they may seem to us as we sit securely in our seat at the theatre -- we should be aware that when we judge others too readily, what we really do is sit in judgment on ourselves.

The Cherry Orchard is a complex ensemble piece with a large cast. It has been fascinating to observe the director plotting the movements of so many actors on the rather small Daylesford stage.

I wouldn't for a moment want to second-guess the critics' verdict on our work, but from the way the rehearsals seem to me to be shaping up, I'd say you shouldn't miss this show, you really shouldn't. The play's a classic, the director's brilliant -- and the cast even includes a dog.

No, I'm not referring to myself. There really is a live dog in the play.

So what more could you ask, apart from dolphins -- and Chekhov didn't call for them in the script.

The Cherry Orchard will be staged at The Daylesford Theatre, Hamilton, from Monday 25 to Saturday 30 October, 1999. Tickets are available from the Theatre box office from October 18-22 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and on show evenings between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. (curtain time).