The Seagull

Play (1896)
by Anton Chekhov

With Kate Burton (Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina), Thomas Derrah (Pytor Nikolayevich Sorin), Nael Nacer (Semyon Semyonovich Medvendenko), Auden Thornton (Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya), Ted Koch (Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin), Meredith Holzman (Masha), Morgan Ritchie (Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev), Marc Vietor (Yevgeny Sergeyevich Dorn), Don Sparks (Ilya Afanayevich Shamrayev), Nancy E. Carroll (Paulina Andreyevna), Kyle Cherry (Yakov), Jeff Marcus (Servant), Melissa Jesser (The Maid), June Baboian (The Cook)

This story about unfulfilled writing and unrequited love, among other things, is so full of internal tensions that one never stops speculating about who will wind up with whom, whose careers will flourish and whose will fail.

The action entails a good number of characters whose lives tread on one another, and, in some way, it all circles around Irina Niolayevna Arkadina (Kate Burton), a middle-aged actress, and her lover Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin (Ted Koch). But the youthful and glittering Nina Mikhailvna Zarechnaya (Auden Thornton) has eyes for Trigorin despite his age, even though she is pursued by Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev (Morgan Ritchie).

Meanwhile, Masha (Meredith Holzman), though tied up with Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko (Nael Nacer), holds a secret torch for Treplev. It is all tremendously knotted and networked and you can be sure that, it being Chekhov, nobody winds up too terribly happy in the end.

This is one of the best productions of a Chekhov play I have seen. Clearly, the direction by Maria Aitken is superb since all of the actors shine. It is difficult to imagine the skill she employs in facilitating the range of emotions evoked.

The first half is a true Chekhovian comedy, with knee slapping laughs all the way along.

As Masha, Meredith Holzman pulls no punches, and with her sardonic wit sharply honed, she draws many hearty guffaws. She is supported robustly all the way along by Nancy E. Carroll (Paulina Andreyevna), who plays her mother with earnest pique and savage directness. When she goes at Yevgeny Sergevevich Dorn (Marc Vietor) in romantic pursuit it has a dog after the bone quality, and Carroll has a dry, hard-edged determination that adds seasoning to the ordinary Chekhovian mix of laid back ennui.

The genius of this production is that it manages to draw the real drama out of the play by punctuating it with all sorts of subtle touches.

There is a great variety in the depiction of the characters and it gives the production a three dimensionality which is vital and refreshing. Whether it is Thomas Derrah’s pseudo-Falstaffian take on Sorin, robust and funny but also quietly lonely, Ted Koch’s almost cowboyish twist on Trigorin, Nancy E. Carroll’s tough-old-bird approach to Andreyevna, or Meredith Holzman’s sharp one-liner take on Masha, the performances rise up distinctively and pull Chekhov out of his potential slumbers. It is very easy to let Chekhov’s muted comedic-tragedies wander into the realms of inexact existential doldrums, but this production counteracts that brilliantly.

In the first act, Nael Nacer (Mevendenko) begins the hilarity with carefully crafted deliveries that exhibit his tremendous ability to be poignant and wry at the same time. His give and take with Meredith Holzman (Masha) during those opening scenes is a wonder to behold.

As the play winds into its more emotionally complex second half, the vivid talents of Auden Thornton (Nina) emerge clearly. How she, and director Aitken, have crafted the transitions of that character are quite striking.

Kate Burton is certainly a magisterial presence as Arkadina and comes most fully into her own near the end of the first half as she wields her power in a subtle and difficult encounter with Trigorin.

So much about this production is first-rate in addition to the acting and direction.

The set is beautifully done, quite different in first and second parts, at once suggestively rustic and showing glamorous age. The music works brilliantly well, with some original interludes by Mark Bennett that fit into place but also stand out emblematically.

The real challenge to Chekhov is to get its complex interaction of irony, humor and tragedy into the right mix and to bring them out in pointed ways. So many productions of Chekhov plays seem worn out and tired, seemingly infected by the mood of the declining upper castes of turn of the century Russia which the plays typically depict. It takes real artfulness to tune everything right so that all the conflicting vectors of hope and disappointment have potent effect rather than cancelling one another out in a blasé haze.

This production succeeds in bringing out those distinctive aspects of Chekhov’s drama and making for a robust but subtle result. It is Chekhov at its very finest, and should not be missed.

– BADMan