Anton Chekhov said that in life everything was mixed up: “the profound with the trite, the tragic with the comic.” And it is this knife-edge between laughter and tears which any revival of his plays has to achieve.
The characters in The Seagull are all slaves to their egos and everybody is in love with the wrong person. Konstantin, a young unperformed playwright, loves Nina, a stage-struck girl, who loves Trigorin, a famous writer, who is loved by Arkadina, Konstantin’s mother, a famous actress.
Matthew Dunster’s production, using a new version by Torben Betts, works well in the open air and is notable for the asides and monologues being acted as voice-overs. The servants play a key role as silent, bemused observers of a society falling apart.
Lisa Diveny as Masha, who loves Konstantin, has a prominent role in this revival and seizes her opportunities. There are also good performances from Ian Redford as old Sorin with his endless regrets over his unlived life (a major theme of the play) and from Colin Hoult as the ignored schoolmaster, so preoccupied with his lack of money that he talks about nothing else.