When the first act curtain came down on the Broadway revival of The Seagull, several of my fellow theatergoers made a strange remark. “I forgot that nothing really happens in Chekov,” they noted of the Russian playwright’s lack of dramatic action. This immediately struck me as incorrect. Sure, as a list of events this story about a family spending time at an uncle’s estate may seem inert: they sit in one room and have a conversation; they sit in another and pour a drink. But because of the words those characters are speaking, a psychological fire that starts in a clearing in the woods quickly burns down the house. Like life, this show demonstrates that it’s not always wild events that define us, but the intricacies of our interactions.
This stark revival brought over by London’s Royal Court Theatre is bursting with immediacy, thanks in no small part to the brilliance of Chekov’s words, which seem startlingly modern today. The design elements share this modernity, and make sure to never pull the focus far from the characters and their interactions, in all their convoluted madness. Bare walls provide ample support for the scenes, and at moments produce stunning imagery. Even something as simple as a scene change is given dramatic weight beneath Peter Mumford’s lighting, the most evocative I have seen on stage in recent memory, which gives the lakeside estate a sense of foreboding theatricality.
As the events begin unfolding, first in the woods created by set designer Hildegard Bechtler that consist of little more than tree stumps, benches, and one set of branches looming from stage right, characters emerge from the wings, immediately relaying tensions between master and servant, celebrity and commoner.
It is the famous, but fading actress Arkadina (played by Kristin Scott Thomas with a blend of campy aloofness and frigid self-centeredness that only occasionally becomes unbalanced) whom much of the story centers on, even when the action is seemingly about something else. Each word is ripe with subtext. Using conversations with Arkadina's son Konstantin and his love, Nina (who has a fascination with Arkadina that is as unhealthy as Konstantin’s resentment of his mother), Chekov initiates the ideas of manipulation, control, and isolation that seem to be the root of the problems his characters deal with.
It is Arkadina that the dialogue keeps coming back to throughout the three-hour running time. Her son resents living in her shadow; her lover (a successful writer, Trigorin, played by the distractingly lispy film actor Peter Sarsgaard) is one of many who must stroke her ego or risk instigating one of her melodramatic mood swings; and her brother’s servants are forced to bow their heads and hoist luggage with nary a tip from her deep pockets.
All of the actors infuse their characters with psychological turmoil that is only sometimes spoken of, but always visible through the skilled performances. None better than Carey Mulligan, always on the verge of tears, with her brilliant portrayal of the malleable Nina—a young actress so enamored with Trigorin’s stature and way with words that she obsesses over him, follows him to the city, and ultimately arrives back at the estate in shambles. Though Arkadina--whose denial is as stifling as her corset--is the catalyst for much of the devastation that occurs in the second half, it is Nina who embodies the metaphor at the title of Chekov’s masterpiece. Though the use of birds and the freedom that flight represents is hardly revolutionary, Nina’s “Seagull” speech in the second act reveals the beauty of the writer’s metaphor for control, and the downside of being able to take flight: one is always susceptible to falling.
Despite several references to Russia, the abundance of bushy bearded men, and the stunning period costumes (the dresses for Scott Thomas are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen), this production could just as easily take place today. The themes of Chekov’s words are timeless. But it is the specificity of his characters that, in my eyes, makes this play such an enduring work.
The entire evening builds perfectly under the skilled direction of Ian Rickson, culminating in a final blackout that is the most haunting use of lighting I’ve ever seen. For the brief moment sitting in the theater between the blackout and the curtain call, I was breathless and overwhelmed by how much had happened throughout the show. The Seagull is not to be missed.