THE SEAGULL. To 10 May.

Manchester

THE SEAGULL
by Anton Chekhov translated by Michael Frayn

Royal Exchange Theatre In rep to 10 May 2003
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm
16-23 April, 28-30 (mat) April, 3-7 (mat), 10 (eve May
Runs 2hr 40min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 April

Making no assumptions about how Chekhov ‘ought’ to be, this fine production has a clear and resonant ring of truth.
Smell the earth in the opening act of Greg Hersov’s fine revival. It’s a sign of the evening’s directness reflected in Liz Ashcroft’s set, where the only fantastication is the tree-house stage for Konstantin’s avant garde drama. This comes over as comically inept, pointing up his last act realisation that writing should come from the heart. It recalls Chekhov’s dictum that a gun displayed in act one should be fired in act three.

The gun in thus play is fired offstage at the very end, by when Steven Robertson’s nervy Konstantin, emotionally spontaneously combusting throughout, has shown himself as feeling-driven and self-obsessed as his actress-mother. Geraldine Alexander’s Arkadina enters the improvised earth-floor garden-theatre as if walking on red carpets at the Imperial opera. In long, white delicate dress, wine-glass and cigarette poised, she can’t resist – having helped destroy her son’s premiere – climbing up to put herself centre-stage.

Every moment has its pose; she’s never better than when re-seducing her fashionable writer-lover Trigorin from young Nina’s attractive ingenuity, employing a fantastic symphony of eye-contact, clasping, fondling, of floating, dreamy-voiced flattery. Like acting, it fuses passion and manipulation: in the finale-embrace her words over his shoulder – ‘He’s mine now’ – could be spoken for him as well as herself.

Emma Lowndes’ Nina isn’t definitive like her astounding performance in Simon Stephens’ Port here last autumn (the competition a) exists, b) is extensive). Vocally, she relies unrelentingly for 3 acts on a limited ‘poetic’ tone and pitching. But it’s a fine performance from an exceptional young actor, whose facial expression is alert, eager to absorb the experience which will eventually disillusion her. Hersov perceptively allows her real fondness for Konstantin in act one: accepting a long kiss, walking off in an embrace. It makes more of her next act declaration that he’s changed. And so (as he says) has she.

It’s a step on the way from the impressionable country girl to the experienced hack-actor who unwittingly delivers Konstantin’s death-blow – at a time when his authorial self-image is low – by rushing to the door when she hears the faithless Trigorin’s voice.

Here the Exchange stage, impressive in creating evening or daylight under Bruno Poet’s fine lighting plot (Poet’s among the brightest star in the theatre lighting firmament), but losing out, from my seat, on the first act lake in the distance and the last act remnants of Konstantin’s stage, comes into its own as she rushes out of audience sight as well as away from her would-be lover.

Lowndes traces Nina’s growing life-experience, through the embarrassed third act secrecy as she stands silent, turned away with hands in pocket till Kellie Bright’s quietly yet clearly delineated Masha leaves her and Trigorin with a meaningful look, to the final act woman, lolloping where once she ran, eyes, features – even hair - damped-down from the enthusiasm of two years earlier.

Hersov keeps Trigorin, the writer/observer at the stage periphery much of the time: others perform for his benefit: his centre-stage moments are primarily those when he falls for one of them. He’s even seated there, calmly eating at a table as, centre-stage, Masha joins in the acting.

There are telling performances among the men: John Cording’s bailiff has clearly picked up the histrionics from his mistress when it comes to use of his horses. Russell Dixon’s bristling Sorin is reduced to bald illness in his wheelchair-bound final scene. Tom Hodgkins’ imposing Dorn contrasts the theatricalities all around with a rare self-realisation that accommodates consideration of other people’s predicaments, giving unusual clarity to his closing concern for Arkadina’s feelings.

Hersov accommodates a wide-range of mood and pace in this fine production, lively yet deeply-felt. The measure of this production comes as the final act opens, with characters quietly grouped round the fire, hearing Sorin’s ruminative philosophy. A moment, in a production, to cherish.

Arkadina: Geraldine Alexander
Maidservant: Lorna Alexis Lewis
Polina: Helen Atkinson Wood
Masha: Kellie Bright
Shamrayev: John Cording
Yakov: Andrew Crawford
Sorin: Russell Dixon
Dr Dorn: Tom Hodgkins
Nina: Emma Lowndes
Medvedenko: Joseph Millson
Konstantin: Steven Robertson
Trigorin: Colin Tierney
Manservant: Dan Willis

Director: Greg Hersov
Designer: Liz Ashcroft
Lighting: Bruno Poet
Sound: Steve Brown

2003-04-16 20:31:33