| . | 03/18/2008
The Seagull
By: Victor Gluck
Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming
(photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Anton Chekhov’s plays always seem to give American actors and directors trouble because the author labeled them comedies, by which he probably meant what we call tragicomedy today. The audience is placed in a position of knowing more than the characters who never realize that their futile and foolish attempts at happiness are both doomed and comic to the viewer. American productions fail to find the right style and tone for this kind of Russian comedy of character. Often revivals throw numerous star actors together for the first time with either little stage experience or little knowledge of Chekhovian comedy. Hence, native productions run the gamut from tragedy to farce without being very successful.
The Classic Stage Company’s revival of The Seagull, Chekhov’s first major full length play, appears to have one advantage: a Russian-born director. In addition, the cast is headed by two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest as the celebrated actress Arkadina and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming as her lover, the successful writer Trigorin. Unfortunately, Viacheslav Dolgachev has directed with a very broad hand and allowed the actors a very free rein. The result which often verges on farce has the cast pulling in different directions. While Wiest commands the stage at all times, her characterization as Madame Arkadina, a famous but ageing actress, is shallow rather than profound. The entire production is very unsubtle where it ought to be nuanced and enlightening.
Written in 1896, The Seagull brings the actress Arkadina, on hiatus from her stage roles, to the country estate of her brother Sorin. With her is her younger lover Trigorin, a famous but commercial writer. Her son Konstantin, an intellectual who lives on the estate, despises Trigorin both for his superficial writing and his wide success. In order to impress his mother, Konstantin puts on a symbolic, modernistic play with his girl friend Nina, an aspiring actress from a nearby estate, in the main role. Unfortunately, the play is a failure, Nina is attracted to the famous writer who regards her simply as material for a story, and Akadina has little time for her grown-up son who reminds her that she is getting on in years. Two years later, all of the characters are reunited at the estate, but time has taken its toll on all of them.
Although Arkadina hardly ever stops acting off stage, she is described as a very great actress. Wiest makes her too flighty and trivial to make us believe that she takes her career very seriously. She does have some impressive moments, particularly when she silently changes Konstantin’s bandage, demonstrating with her hands and body all she cannot say. However, most of the time, she over emotes, to the detriment of her character, never allowing a hint that her character is conscious of what she is doing. Cumming as her lover Trigorin has taken the opposite approach. He gives a low-key, internalized performance. At times impish, he does not exude the authority of the successful author to whom fame and craft sit easily. Although he wears a beard which ages him slightly, he still seems too young for this role.
Konstantin is a tall order for any actor as he must be the loving yet resentful son, the disappointed, loyal lover, and the struggling, rule-breaking but untested author. Ryan O’Nan brings little in the way of interpretation to the role. Most of the time, he seems bland and ineffectual. Kelli Garner has charm as the young, impressionable Nina, but is more effective as the disillusioned mature woman that she has become by the last act.
The rest of the cast seem to have been left to their own devices and use a variety of disparate styles. John Christopher Jones is very mannered as Arkadina’s self-absorbed brother Sorin. In the last act, he has chosen to make Sorin more ill than he is usually played. As the local doctor, David Rasche is a hearty, high living sort which undercuts his sound advice throughout the play. Bill Christ’s Shamrayev, the manager of Sorin’s estate, is played as a comic character while his wife Paulina, played by Annette O’Toole, is given social pretensions. Greg Keller and Marjan Neshat as a mismatched pair who will soon wed approximate best the kind of tragicomedy that Chekhov intends.
Santo Loquasto’s sets which use the entire CSC stage are too big for the small cast. Since much of the play is made up of two-character conversations, intimacy has been sacrificed by this design concept. Brian MacDevitt’s over-bright lighting fails to overcome this. The glossy, reflective stage floor does not help either. The strangest element of the set is the small stage used for Konstantin’s play in Act I which is repositioned in each of the succeeding three acts, through it has no place in the interiors. Suzy Benzinger’s costumes are most elegant and create the atmosphere that is lacking in both the set and the direction. Paul Schmidt’s translation is lucid but seems in this production far too contemporary for the late 19th century sets and costumes.
Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is a difficult play to bring off because of its subtle changes of mood, and its characters, hungry for life, whose willful pursuits can only bring them to ruin. It requires actors to inhabit their roles. Although Viacheslav Dolgachev’s production for the Classic Stage Company is an engrossing, though talky show, the broad acting style undermines the subtlety of the author’s wisdom. Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming are always worth watching. However, here they do not yet seem to have fully grown into their characters.
The Seagull (through April 13)
Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-352-3101 or http://www.classicstage.org
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