Seagull – review

Chekhov’s Seagull is showing at the Arcola until 16 July 2011

This article titled “Seagull – review” was written by Lyn Gardner, for The Guardian on Tuesday 21st June 2011 18.15 UTC

Chekhov’s play loses the definitive article in its title, and has some cuts (demanded by the censor before its 1896 premiere) restored in this new version by Charlotte Pyke, John Kerr and Joseph Blatchley. But apart from a ravishingly quiet and centred performance by Geraldine James as the insecure, ageing actress Arkadina, who clings blindly to her lover, the writer Trigorin, while casually crushing all the hope and life out her son, Konstantin, there is little that’s radical in a over-long production that often seems poised to take flight, but which remains solemnly earthbound.

Blatchley, who also directs, suggests in a programme note that our notions of Chekhov have become hidebound by Stanislavski’s legacy. Maybe that was once the case, but as the best recent revivals have proved, it’s a long time since British theatre left Chekhov to wallow around in birch trees. The Seagull is a comedy whose tragedy arises from the ridiculousness of its characters: we warm to them because they wear their absurdities so blatantly on their sleeves. Nina can’t act; Konstantin’s play is rubbish; Triogorin is second-rate; Arkadina clings to past glories. The tragedy is that they get the opportunities to become better versions of themselves and always fail. They are irresistibly human.

The promised lightness never materialises in a production that is always perfectly competent, and which benefits hugely from the intimacy of the Arcola, and a raft of experienced actors including the excellent Roger Lloyd Pack as the philandering doctor, Dorn, and Gabrielle Lloyd’s light comic touch as the desperate Polina. The youngsters fare less well, although Jodie McNee makes her mark as the self-dramatising Masha who always dresses in black because she is “mourning my life”.

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