o, you want a fun night out at the theater, huh? Something to uplift and inspire, right? Well, stay home! “”The Seagull”” is a convoluted foray into the personal demons of 11 people living in rural Russia. It’s depressing, moody, and the audience spends more than half of its two-and-a-half hours watching people sitting down and complaining about their lives ‹ and it’s fabulous.
White love: “”The Seagull”” features loneliness and unrequited love with dramatic yet humorous dialogue.
Written by noted Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov, “”The Seagull”” explores the story of the young playwright Konstantin, played by Geno Monteiro, and his quasi-love Nina, spunkily played by Christine Albright.
Of course, things being what they are, this is an unrequited love. It isn’t helped in the slightest by the fact that Nina has fallen in love with Konstantin’s stepfather Trigorin (played with considerable virtue by Owiso Odera), a successful playwright who represents everything Konstantin despises about the world. The Oedipal conflict just wouldn’t be complete without Konstantin’s continual struggle to gain the respect of his mother Arkadina, a wax figure of an actress, played with a surprising amount of gusto by Lisa Velten.
Completing this theme of loneliness and unrequited love are several more couples who run circles around each other (never figuring out what they want), and a dying man (Jose Chavarry) who regrets pretty much everything in his life.
From this labyrinthine plot, Chekhov spins a web of dialogue that is part gut-wrenching drama and part laugh-out-loud comedy of manners. All of the well-rounded characters bounce off each other marvelously and each of the performers does a stellar job of finding the humor apparent in the style and rhythm of their characters.
For the more dramatic second half, however, the adage “”less is more”” seems to have been ignored in terms of acting. While the humor continues to be subdued and realistic, several “”tear-jerker”” monologues seem like hollow, zealous performances.
But a stunning exception comes from the most painful moment of the play, involving the love story of the schoolteacher Medvedenko (Brad Fisher).
Full of life and energy as he attempts to win the heart of Masha, Medvedenko completely transforms into a spectacle of quiet misery after Masha marries him out of convenience. As Masha, Colette Beauvais offers a deliciously disturbing and subtle performance as she shoots verbal barb after barb at her pathetic husband.
The set, designed by Kevin Judge, is nothing short of brilliant. Pushing the walls as far out as they go, Judge fills the enormous space with semi-transparent paintings which are brought to life by the lighting design of Shirley Halahmy, silently expressing every nuance and mood of the play.
Director Larissa Kokernot uses this modest space to arrange the many characters like figures in an oil painting, creating images of sheer beauty as characters fight each other into madness. Despite the fact that nearly the entire cast is onstage for most of the show, Kokernot ensures that the audience’s eyes are gently drawn to the dramatic action, but not so forcefully that the audience is torn by what they would like to see.
So if you’re in the mood for a simple and digestible story, go wait in the lines at Blockbuster. But if you dare to enter the world of Chekhov and experience madness, lust, despair, hilarity, irony and beauty, catch a ticket to “”The Seagull”” before every show is sold out.
