He laughed at me - for so long and so hard, that I ended up laughing myself.

The latest in an occasional series of play reviews...

The Seagull : Harold Pinter Theatre

The last play I wrote about premiered in 1944 and was considered a classic - this one first appeared in 1896, so it's a positive dinosaur.  But it's a very well regarded dinosaur and I've never seen any Chekhov, so I was looking forward to it.

And then I walked into the theatre and saw this...

Uh-oh.  I wouldn't say my heart exactly dropped, but I can't say it soared either.  The cast then spent the next twenty minutes randomly wandering about the stage picking up the set (or, as you probably refer to them, chairs) before settling into this formation

The lights then dropped and we were off.  And what a curious beast we were presented with - where to start?  I mentioned before I'd never seen any Chekhov and a large part of me came away thinking this is still the case - what I saw was obviously based on the original, but is apparently "a version by Anya Reiss" from 2012 including references to mobiles, cars, films, Give Us A Clue and various other things that barely existed in 1896 (Lionel Blair was around back then, but not Una Stubbs).  Can you imagine what Give Us A Clue would be like in 1896 - errrr, is it a book by any chance?  No?  OK, it's a play then.

Anyways, back to the play - I'm fine with things being updated (although I don't feel they always have to be) and I'm assuming the plot was reasonably faithful to the original.  And the plot felt pretty much like what I was expecting - many dysfunctional relationships, both familial and romantic with oh-so-much anguish involved.  And no, it doesn't end well for everyone.  It also featured more seagull than I was expecting - I assumed the reference to be allegorical rather than physical (as opposed to allegorical and physical).  But the plot's not really the major talking point for me here, it's how the plot is presented.

Let me start by saying that none of what follows is in any way a comment on the actors involved (that sounds ominous, doesn't it?).  We'll come back to them later, but I strongly believe they were either following orders or unreasonably constrained by their environment.  Because - let's revisit that first picture of the stage above, shall we?  Where are the stage entrances and exits?  Oh.

Yes, no-one left the stage except at the end of the first act when they stepped off the front - for the rest of the time when they weren't "in" the scene they sat down on "their" chair staring into space, generally at the side of the stage.  But not always, sometimes right in the middle of the action.  And some of the characters are quite minor characters, so they basically spent most of the 2.5 hours sitting motionless and mute.

But that's OK though, right?  Because you could always tell who was "in" the scene and who wasn't, surely?  Well - no, because most of the acting was done sitting down, which was, for me, a really odd creative choice.  In the second half, there was a long scene between two major characters in which they discussed their lives, loves and regrets - and they did it all sharing the same plastic seat, cheek by cheek as it were.  And this is why I'm saying I don't blame the actors because they both do a great job here, but I couldn't help but feel that some movement here wouldn't have hurt.

So, who were the actors enduring these ridiculous conditions?  Emilia Clarke was the headline name playing Nina, who shared the chair with Daniel Monks playing Konstantin and I'd have to say this was my favourite portion of the play with them both displaying a wistful range of emotions.  The first half of the play was owned by Arkadina, Konstantin's mother who was supposed to be played by Indira Varma (who I would liked to have seen) but was understudied in my performance by someone whose name I didn't catch - sorry.  Robert Glenister (who I've just watched in Sherwood) did a good job as Sorin (Arkadina's brother) - I was less convinced by Tom Rhys Harries playing Trigorin (who Wikipedia tells me is Chekhov's best male role).  The remains of the cast (and to some extent Daniel Monks) gave performances which were very one-note - I'm assuming they were following orders here, but it felt quite jarring at times.

So, overall I wasn't massively impressed by the production so was intrigued to check out the reviews - and basically everyone loves it.  I suspect that's maybe because they've all seen a million performances of The Seagull and they're pleased to see something new - one of the reviews even says it "feels more like watching a rehearsal where the performers are zapped of energy", which I'd have to say I agree with (or maybe even a read-through where they're not familiar with the play yet), but I'm struggling to see how that can be a good thing.  I'm all for a bit of a challenging production, but this just felt too stripped back for me - when discussing it with my sister who works in the theatre, her comment was "ah - the modern interpretation (some may say wanky)" and in this case I find myself agreeing with the expert opinion.  Maybe if I'd seen the play before I'd have enjoyed it more - but it's also more than possible I'd have hated it more.

Wikipedia also tells me that Chekhov wrote it as a comedy - there are some amusing lines, but I'm not sure a play that includes so much unrequited love and two suicide attempts (which happen off stage in the original, so here were depicted by a loud bang and the lights being turned up - which confused me totally the first time it happened) is all that funny.  The opening night was apparently a complete failure but people soon came to like it and when Stanislavski directed it for the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 it was "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama" and his direction now means the play is viewed as a "tragedy through overzealousness with the concept of subtext" - which is, of course, exactly how I'd describe it.

Two more points and I'm done - honest.  The ending was very, very weird (but I'd have been surprised if it wasn't) and the theatre was very, very hot.  It was so hot I actually bought a drink at the bar in the interval - very reasonably priced too, it wasn't.

So, to sum up, I didn't like it really.  But I'm happy enough with that because it made me consider why I didn't like it and I can still appreciate the effort that went into it.  If you've seen The Seagull a handful of times and have got bored with all that stuff in other productions like sets, movement and emotion then this might be right up your street.  Otherwise, you might prefer to give this a miss - your choice!

The Glass Menagerie - a classic piece of theatre, dah-ling
Closer - showing its age, unfortunately