THE SEAGULL Chekhov, version by Tom Stoppard. Dundee Rep to 27 October

Touring

THE SEAGULL
by Anton Chekhov English version by Tom Stoppard

Dundee Rep Theatre To 27 October 2001, then tour in 2002.
Runs 3hr 10min One interval

TICKETS 01382 223530
Review Thelma Good 13 October

A physical, wild Chekhov delights.In The Seagull we laugh at young Konstantin's attempt to change theatre and much more besides. Director Rimas Tuminas' Seagull has all the zest, life and love that Konstantin's static adolescent play lacks. And there's a whole bitter sea of longing to be moved by.

The 13 actors of Dundee Rep's resident company are wholly in tune with all this. They make every moment resonant and buoyant. The twin forces of comedy and tragedy are tightly, extraordinarily balanced in these humans racked by their desires for success, sex and, over all, love.

Sandy Neilson's Dorn is wise, ironic and maddening in his acceptance of life and death. He is the counsellor to all. Women's attraction to him is clear in the way he moves and turns, despite being 55.

Shamraev is given a great brooding performance by Alexander West, whip in hand, sensing that, in a future beyond the play, the tables will turn. His daughter Masha (Meg Fraser) is agonising in her unfulfilled passion for Konstantin and it's hard to watch as John Ramage's Medvedenko yearns for her and then finds she can't even care for their child, never mind him. All the cast present equally living characters; every role is given a high quality performance.

At times the cast find themselves on top of objects somehow propelled by their characters' intensity. Or, objects move across the background. It all builds a strong sense of the endless goings on in the Sorin estate. Characters roll across the stage, abandoned in the delight of their desire, or they sit on the carpet like the children their behaviour shows them to be. Trigorin, the successful middle-aged writer (given puck-like life by Rodney Matthew) climbs up a wooden pillar in a way reminiscent of Ibsen's Master Builder.

The many tiny details build through a glorious crescendo in a production which resounds gloriously in the memory.

Tour: 22-26 January Theatre Royal Glasgow, 6-9 February His Majesty's Aberdeen, 13-16 February Eden Court Inverness.

2001-10-19 00:36:20