THE SEAGULL. To 12 January.
London.
THE SEAGULL
by Anton Chekhov English version by Trevor Nunn in consultation with the company from a literal translation by Noah Birksted-Breen.
New London Theatre In rep to 12 January 2008.
Mon-Sat 7pm Mat 1, 8, 22 Dec, 12 Jan 1pm.
no performance 24-26,31 Dec.
Audio-described 4 Dec.
Captioned 10 Dec.
Runs 3hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 0870 890 0141 (£1.50 booking fee per ticket).
www.rsc.org.uk/london
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 November.
An evening of rich detail that ultimately comes out well.
Anton Chekhov’s Seagull is a play of four acts, with a two-year gap between the final two. Like most productions, Trevor Nunn’s for the Royal Shakespeare Company takes its interval after act two. But it’s only when time’s passed on aging actress Arkadina’s country estate, and young Nina, who ran away to a doomed love affair and the start of a proper acting career, comes home that the production brings its own returns.
Nunn gives unusual force to Nina’s repetition of her lines from Konstantin’s play, seen in Chekhov’s first act. Romola Garai’s Nina now understands the speech; voice and gestures express the words’ emotions rather than emptily flailing. Experience has screwed her up and spat her out an artist.
This is almost too funny a production. Frances Barber scores by having Arkadina occupy the garden-stage to perform Hamlet before her son’s own play’s even started. But this comic moment's followed by too many more. Yet just as Barber seems to be going for every obtainable laugh; patronising Nina, dancing merrily to suggest continuing youth before losing her balance, she has a breathtaking reverse.
In the third act Arkadina’s trying to win Trigorin back from the young Nina. She throws everything into the performance, including herself as she climbs over the prostrate writer, pelting him with expressions of adoration. For an instant she suggests it’s a trick, the performance of a lifetime where she fakes sincerity as never before. But when she’s succeeded, Barber shows, in her breathless relief, how desperate and involved Arkadina had been.
Barber and Garai apart, the show’s main strengths are in roles surrounding the scene. Guy Williams’ gives estate-manager Shamrayev a facile cheerfulness that goes nowhere, or is listened to by no-one, and turns to anger when his arrangements are disrupted.
William Gaunt (sharing the role with Ian McKellen) makes Sorin an amiable idler, precursor of Cherry Orchard’s billiards-fanatic Gayev, turning in his wheelchair as he’s pushed off to convey one more piece of chatter. Comic and sympathetic, this old man’s gradual debilitation and repeated recoveries seem to mock the younger people’s emotional urgency.
Arkadina: Frances Barber.
Konstantin: Richard Goulding.
Sorin: William Gaunt/Ian McKellen.
Nina: Romola Garai.
Shamrayev: Guy Williams.
Polina: Melanie Jessop.
Masha: Monica Dolan.
Trigorin: Gerald Kyd.
Dorn: Jonathan Hyde.
Medvedenko: Ben Meyjes.
Yakov: Peter Hinton.
Arkadina’s maid: Zoe Boyle.
Cook: Naomi Capron.
Butler: David Weston.
Household Servants: Seymour Matthews, Ben Addis, Russell Byrne.
Estate Workers: Adam Booth, Julian Harries, John Heffernan, Philip Winchester.
Director: Trevor Nunn.
Designer: Christopher Oram.
Lighting: Neil Austin.
Sound: Fergus O'Hare.
Music: Steven Edis.
Music Director: Jeff Moore
Company voice work: Lyn Darnley
Assistant director: Gemma Fairlie
Associate designer: Morgan Large
2007-12-02 13:28:08