I love The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. I love this play – but this play is a tough read! As one of the foundations of western dramatic literature there is no way of escaping this play – – and you SHOULDN’T want to escape this play. Of course, if all you do is read this play – you might find yourself falling asleep. There is just nothing that happens! It is not a play of action and further all of the big moments – the melodarama of the play – happens offstage. The suicide, the drunken fights, the tragedy, the dead children and all the heartache is not brought to the stage but merely TALKED about. How does this make a good play?
That’s the question that I get asked my Theatre History students as we plunged forward into the play. I do all that I can to try to share what it is like to sit in the theatre of a solid professional production of this play. I do all I can to show how in and out and between these words on the page are wonderful treasures of possibilities. The play is so rich for all that it is UNABLE to say and UNABLE to show. This play is funny and alive and so far from being boring. But by just saying it, I become boring, and the game is over.
It really is tough to get these young people of the theatre to understand what the art they chose is all about. I am always taken back to think that there are children in our department that work hard every day for 4 years and have YET to see a professional production of anything worth merit. How do they even know that this is the game that they want to play? Sure I will drag a good dozen or so – who fortunately come from families that can afford it – to NYC each summer for our extravaganza of 14 plays in 10 days – – but that’s only a fraction of all of the students that SHOULD be seeing some theatre. I always tell them that I wish we didn’t have to read a single play. Plays were meant to be experienced and not read – – but given what we are given until we are given more – it’s about the best I can do.