Elevator Repair Service puts its unique spin on Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull (photo by Ian Douglas)
SEAGULL
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl. between Third & Fourth Sts.
Through July 31, $50-$60 (use code FB25 for $25 tickets)
212-945-2600
nyuskirball.org
www.elevator.org
I’m beginning to think I might never see another traditional production of Anton Chekhov’s 1895–96 classic, The Seagull. Perhaps more than any other playwright, Chekhov’s works almost demand reinvention for the stage in the twenty-first century. His tragicomic take on human relationships and society’s ills invite modern, often extensive reinterpretation and experimentation.
As often as Shakespeare’s plays are reimagined, they almost always still contain the Bard’s original dialogue; it’s the staging that changes. The same is not necessarily true about Chekhov, as evidenced by such recent successes as Arlekin Players Theatre’s hybrid The Orchard (The Cherry Orchard), Aaron Posner’s Life Sucks. (Uncle Vanya), and Halley Feiffer’s Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (Three Sisters).
As far as The Seagull goes, over the last ten years I’ve seen Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird at the Pearl in 2016, a deliriously chaotic yet controlled rave-up sticking to the main plot but told with an intoxicating irreverence; Jeffrey Hatcher’s Ten Chimneys, at St. Clement’s in 2012, which goes behind the scenes of an upcoming Broadway revival of The Seagull starring Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne; and Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a delightful all-star mashup of The Seagull, Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya that ran on and off Broadway in 2013.
Elevator Repair Service, the downtown company whose literary adaptations include William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby — the much-admired eight-hour Gatz — now turns its unusual techniques on Chekhov with Seagull, continuing at NYU Skirball through July 31. Nearly three hours with one intermission, the play self-referentially refers to itself regularly, with actors occasionally speaking to the audience as themselves, not as their characters. It begins with a long monologue by company member Pete Simpson, who talks about the Skirball space itself. “One of these two corkscrew, fluted, gold leaf columns is structural and holds up the building above us. The other is hollow, insubstantial, and does nothing but sit there and look pretty in an attempt to make things look symmetrical.”
When he said that under each chair are three flags, a red one that “will tell us you feel physically threatened or uncomfortable,” a checkered one to use if you just “wanna talk,” and a third to order food, I saw the woman sitting across the aisle from me reach below her seat to see if the flags were really there. (They’re not.) But it signals that this production is going to veer wildly between the real and the imagined, although all of it turns out to be Chekhovian in one way or another, even if, as Simpson, who also plays the teacher Semyon, explains, “95% of tonight’s text both original and adapted has been written by our company’s own Gavin Price,” who portrays wannabe playwright Konstantin.
Director John Collins leaves the central plot intact: The twentysomething Konstantin has invited friends and family over to a lovely lake house to watch his latest play, to be performed by Nina (Maggie Hoffman), a nervous actress he is desperately in love with. Konstantin is hoping to prove to his mother, famous actress Irina (Kate Benson), that he has talent and a purpose in life; Irina, who chastises him regularly in front of everyone, has arrived with her new beau, well-respected and successful writer Boris Trigorin (Robert M. Johanson), who takes a liking to Nina.
Also at the presentation are Patricia (Laurena Allan), Irina’s ailing sister; farmer Ilya (Julian Fleisher), who is a big fan of Irina’s, and his wife, Paulina (Lindsay Hockaday); Masha (Susie Sokol), the farmers’ daughter who is in love with Konstantin but might be married off to Semyon; Yakov (John Gasper), who works at the lake house; and Gene (Vin Knight), a doctor who has an innate charm that lures the ladies, including Paulina.
In the middle of the play-within-a-play, Irina asks, “Is this supposed to be symbolic?” A moment later, she says, “Something smells. Is that part of the effect?” A disgusted Konstantin eventually has to stop the show because of his mother’s interruptions.
Shortly after Patricia has an asthma attack, Benson, Hoffman, and Susie have a discussion as themselves, commenting on how much they enjoyed the previous scene and what Chekhov’s play is about. The play resumes as Konstantin presents Nina with a seagull he just shot.
Masha (Susie Sokol) leads the characters in a strange game in Seagull (photo by Ian Douglas)
Following intermission, Sokol points out how long she has been with ERS, explains the set design, and expresses her disappointment that one of Masha’s key lines has been cut: “I’m in mourning for my life.” Soon various characters consider leaving the lake house, Irina insists she has no money to help anyone, and Konstantin sports a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. “You . . . Symbolist!” Irina again accuses her son. “Miser!” he replies. “You amateur!” she declares. It all goes downhill from there.
The set by dots, so ably described by Sokol, features a row of folding chairs in the front that the characters move about depending on the action. Downstage right is a table with electronic equipment, while upstage left is a cozy dinner table with pictures on the wall. The lighting is by Marika Kent, with sound by Price and Gasper and purposely mismatched costumes by Kaye Voyce, ranging from Nina’s elegant red dress to Irina’s short skirt, heels, and tights.
Collins’s direction may appear disordered as the fictional plot battles it out with the actors’ thoughts and some events happen either offstage or in the background — as when several characters sit down to eat but we can’t make out exactly what they are saying to one another, although it does turn into a terrific bingo-style dance number. But there is a method to his madness, even if it’s not necessarily always clear what he’s up to; numerous pieces of dialogue reflect back on the play we’re watching, as if ironically commenting on what is happening in Seagull at Skirball.
“It’s not easy, you know, acting in your play. There aren’t any ordinary people in it,” Nina tells Konstantin, who responds, “Ordinary people! We have to show life not the way it is, or the way it should be, but the way it is in dreams!” Nina retorts, “But nothing happens in your play! It’s all one long speech. And I think a play ought to have a love story.” Meanwhile, Collins emphasizes Chekhov’s Hamlet references, with Konstantin echoing the young prince, Irina a different kind of Gertrude, Boris representing Claudius, and Nina an embellished Ophelia.
“It was a strange play, wasn’t it?” Nina asks Boris about Konstantin’s show. Boris replies, “I’m afraid I didn’t understand a thing. But it was interesting to watch. You were wonderful. And of course, the set was magnificent!” Most people in the audience seemed to agree with that analysis of ERS’s production, although a handful walked out during the first act and others did not return after intermission; however, those who stayed, the vast majority of the crowd, gave the performers a standing ovation at the end.
Seagull is not for everyone’s taste. It is long — 173 minutes, as Simpson tells us — it is confusing, it is pedantic, and it can be self-referential to a fault, particularly as the cast passes around a microphone and cord, going in and out of character. And don’t get me started on the awful noise made when Patricia is pushed around in a chair. But it all continues founding artistic director Collins’s thirty-plus-year mission of experimenting with new theatrical forms, in original works and unique adaptations.
Hamlet asked himself, “To be or not to be.” In Seagull, Patricia answers, “Just go on living, whether you feel like it or not.” The same can be said for theater itself.