{"id":656210,"date":"2025-03-08T01:35:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-seagull-theater-review-cate-blanchett-leads-a-first-class-ensemble-in-glorious-chekhov-adaptation\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T01:35:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:35:46","slug":"the-seagull-theater-review-cate-blanchett-leads-a-first-class-ensemble-in-glorious-chekhov-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-seagull-theater-review-cate-blanchett-leads-a-first-class-ensemble-in-glorious-chekhov-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018The Seagull\u2019 Theater Review: Cate Blanchett Leads a First-Class Ensemble in Glorious Chekhov Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tWhile Anton Chekhov always thought of The Seagull<\/em> as a comedy, that fact has frequently been forgotten through productions that fall into the soporific trap set by angsty, moping, lovelorn characters losing their hearts and minds in the Russian countryside.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s no such danger with Thomas Ostermeier, who once declared that he wanted to bring \u201csome rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u201d to Ibsen (his Enemy of the People<\/em> had the protagonist play Bowie covers in a band and open a political discussion with the audience). The firebrand German director now blasts the cobwebs off Chekhov with boisterous, dazzling delight.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as irreverent as Ostermeier may seem \u2014 as self-referential, ironic, meta, playful \u2014 he\u2019s true to his material. The reality of The Seagull<\/em> is that it treads that fine line between comedy and tragedy. And while this production is an incredible blast, teetering on farce, Ostermeier and co-adaptor Duncan Macmillan (People, Places & Things<\/em>) actually ramp up the duality. We laugh at this doom-laden bunch because they\u2019re unable to laugh at themselves; but their communal descent into misery is keenly felt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Barbican\u2019s broad stage is virtually empty, except for a large cluster of reeds in the center, which allows for amusing entrances and exits throughout the performance. Behind it, a curving opaque wall, in front, a ramp that extends into the first rows of the audience, garden chairs, a couple of mike stands. Birdsong fills the auditorium, before the first actor, Zachary Hart, makes a very un-Chekhovian entrance \u2014 driving a dune buggy and carrying an electric guitar.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know, it\u2019s nothing you expected,\u201d he jokes, directly to the audience. \u201cWho\u2019s up for a bit of tempo?\u201d He breaks into a rendition of Billy Bragg\u2019s \u201cThe Milkman of Human Kindness.\u201d And then a figure bursts through the foliage, puffing on a vape. This is Masha (Tanya Reynolds), declaring, \u201cI\u2019m in mourning for my life.\u201d Hart\u2019s Simon Medvedenko replies that he would \u201cwalk for an hour to bask in your indifference.\u201d And Chekhov starts to assert himself.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat pair are two of many on an ill-fated romantic merry-go-round. Simon, a factory worker, is in love with Masha, daughter of this country estate\u2019s manager, Shamrayev (Paul Higgins); Masha is in love with Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the nephew of estate owner Sorin (Jason Watkins); Konstantin is besotted with Nina (Emma Corrin), a neighbor, who will fall in love with Trigorin (Tom Burke), a famed writer who arrives with his lover, Konstantin\u2019s mother, the actress Irina Arkadina (Cate Blanchett). Arkadina, of course, is only in love with herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the sidelines, the local doctor, Dorn (Paul Bazely), is conducting an affair with Masha\u2019s mother, Paulina (Priyanga Burford), though his heart\u2019s not really in it. Dorn\u2019s principal role is as a rare character with an ounce of self-awareness, who casts an outsider\u2019s eye on proceedings and a supportive view of young Konstantin\u2019s attempts to become a writer. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the love interests move the play along, the core dynamic is that of mother and son, as poor Konstantin singularly fails to win Arkadina\u2019s interest or respect for his endeavors.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore her showboating entrance, others set the scene. Simon, factory worker and Bragg aficionado, makes explicit the class politics and snobbery that bubble beneath the play\u2019s surface. Sorin, terrifically played by Watkins as a pathetic, crumbled imp, presents the countryside as a place where people go to die. Konstantin (Smit-McPhee making an impressive stage debut) condemns his mother as a narcissist who sees him as \u201can unwelcome reminder of time\u201d and offers a tirade against her theater as lacking relevance and vitality.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latter is an early wink to the audience. Later, Konstantin will call for an end to cultural funding for anyone over 40, a reference to Ostermeier\u2019s own, controversial comment early in his career that directors should stop working at that same age; he is now over 40. Yet there\u2019s a serious question here, too, raised in the play and heightened in this adaptation, about the relevance and role of art \u2014 whether there\u2019s any point at all \u2014 when the world is falling apart.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlanchett\u2019s diva certainly arrives with a bang. Dressed in a lilac jumpsuit, biker jacket and shades, this is a woman desperately not acting her age \u2014 strutting in affected, hip-jutting poses, constantly throwing her hair back in slow-motion, at one point breaking into a tap-dance routine that ends in an albeit impressive, yet groan-inducing splits, every painful second simply accentuating Arkadina\u2019s vanity.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt will continue to be a thoroughly enjoyable physical and comic performance. But the fun doesn\u2019t detract from the character\u2019s shallowness (even at her most vulnerable, as Trigorin acknowledges his feelings for Nina, her pleas to him seem script<\/a>ed, something she\u2019s acted before) or the terrible damage that her lack of care inflicts upon her son.<\/p>\n

\n\tKonstantin\u2019s famous performance of his symbolist play is given a typically unexpected and hilarious rendering, as the boy furnishes his wary audience with VR headsets and hoists the harnessed Nina into the air as she recites her New Age monologue \u2014 only for his mother to bring it all crashing down with her interruptions. (If Blanchett\u2019s performance leaves a desire to see her play Claire Zacahanassian in D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s The Visit<\/em>, so Corrin\u2019s suggests they\u2019d make a potent Ariel in The Tempest<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes the use of gimmicks such as these might break the spell of a \u201cclassic.\u201d And the sense of period here is decidedly freestyle \u2014 the use of Bragg and The Stranglers shout 1980s rather than 1890s, but vapes, cellphones and mention of the cost-of-living crisis bring it bang up to date. Yet, somehow, there\u2019s method to the scattergun madness, which owes much to the accomplished new adaptation \u2014 fresh and pointy, but also full of beautifully poignant moments \u2014 and an incredible ensemble. There are no weak links here, only actors walking a tonal high wire with equal aplomb.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith his natural hangdog demeanour and wearing a pair of beach shorts, Burke (currently also seen with Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh\u2019s Black Bag<\/em>) persuasively presents Trigorin as a man who has lived too much in his own head. His description of the writer\u2019s life as lonely and obsessive does nothing to dent would-be actor Nina\u2019s na\u00efve desire for fame. Despite their differences, the central scene between them is gorgeously romantic; it\u2019s no wonder they will become lovers, but, equally, that it won\u2019t last.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe self-possession Corrin lends Nina in these early scenes makes her later unraveling all the more sad; as does the anger and righteousness of Smit-McPhee\u2019s Konstantin, before those feelings are outgunned by vulnerability.<\/p>\n

\n\tReynolds lends a hardness to Masha, at once bitter and comic, and her leading of a game<\/a> of bingo at the play\u2019s resolution restores some dark humor just as tragedy is about to strike. Would you like to join, she asks Sorin. \u201cJust let me die.\u201d \u00a0Even in a small role, as the cuckolded Shamrayev, Higgins milks his moments. His character\u2019s recollections of the shows he\u2019s seen always miss the point: how he laughed at Medea<\/em>, because the child actors couldn\u2019t stop winking during their death scenes; how the \u201cbravos\u201d at the opera were much better voiced than the performances.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut if Shamrayev is inadvertently debunking art, Ostermeier and Macmillan are doing no such thing. As the mood of the play becomes more somber (complete with darkening sky, thunder, rain and wailing guitar), its purpose becomes clear. Trigorin may bemoan the difficulty in writing \u201cto understand somebody else\u2019s life\u201d, but this is what The Seagull<\/em> resolutely and honorably seeks to achieve.<\/p>\n

\n\tVenue: Barbican Theatre, London<\/em>
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Paul Bazely, Priyanga Burford, Tom Burke, Emma Corrin, Zachary Hart, Paul Higgins, Tanya Reynolds, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jason Watkins<\/em>
Playwright: Anton Chekhov, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier<\/em>
Director: Thomas Ostermeier<\/em>
Set designer: Magda Willi<\/em>
Costume designer: Marg Horwell<\/em>
Lighting designer: Bruno Poet<\/em>
Sound designer: Tom Gibbons<\/em>
Presented by Wessex Grove, Gavin Kalin Productions, in association with the Barbican.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Anton Chekhov always thought of The Seagull as a comedy, that fact has frequently been forgotten through productions that fall into the soporific trap set by angsty, moping, lovelorn characters losing their hearts and minds in the Russian countryside. There\u2019s no such danger with Thomas Ostermeier, who once declared that he wanted to bring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Tom-Burke-Trigorin-Cate-Blanchett-Arkadina-photo-by-Marc-Brenner-H-2025.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[38074,73532,73918,142652,70730,154761],"class_list":["post-656210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-cate-blanchett","tag-emma-corrin","tag-kodi-smit-mcphee","tag-london-theater","tag-theater","tag-tom-burke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}