Serfs Up!: From Rural Russia With Love Triangles to the ’Bu

THE SEAGULL: MALIBU Theater Review

The playwrights Henrik Ibsen of Norway, August Strindberg of Sweden and Anton Chekhov of Russia were, roughly speaking, 19^th century contemporaries who helped revolutionize theater. Perhaps owing to those brooding winters of northern climes, they pioneered a new naturalistic, psychological trend to be performed by ensemble casts. Chekhov’s first major play, The Seagull, premiered 1896 at St. Petersburg’s Alexandrinsky Theatre and was remounted, to great acclaim, in 1898 by the renowned Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski (he of “Method” fame).

In the 130-ish year span of The Seagull, the cast has boasted an impeccable pedigree of show biz royalty, co-starring many notables, including Stanislavski himself as Trigorin and the likewise legendary director Vsevolod Meyerhold as Konstantin in their 1898 production, as well as: Uta Hagen, Lynn Fontane, Alfred Lunt, Dame Judy Dench, Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott Thomas, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Marcia Gay Harden, Zoe Kazan, John Gielgud, Bill Nighy, Kevin Kline, Peter Sarsgaard, et al. Sidney Lumet helmed a 1968 film version, with James Mason, Vanessa Redgrave, Simone Signoret, David Warner, and Denholm Elliott. So, hefty shoes to step into!

In its latest iteration, director Ellen Geer has reset The Seagull, moving the action from 19^th century rural Russia to 1970s Malibu, from serfdom to surfing USA. In this freewheeling Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum retelling, when the proverbial curtain lifts, Irina Arkadina (Susan Angelo) is a hammy actress who has devolved from being a serious stage thespian to a Tinseltown celebrity in escapist entertainment. Like Roy Rogers, Irina has her Trigger (originally monikered Trigorin, here portrayed by Rajiv Shah), the aging actress’ younger lover and a novelist of popular (if not trashy) fiction.

Masha (an almost unrecognizable be-wigged Willow Geer, minus her trademark scarlet locks) is the free-spirited, dope smoking daughter of Ivan (Franc Ross) and Paulina (Katherine Griffith), who take care of the estate owned by Irina’s brother, Thad (the droll Tim Halligan). Ted (Steven C. Fisher, like many others in the cast, a WGTB perennial) is a teacher smitten by Masha, who pursues the perpetually stoned hippie-ish woman. Dr. Dore (Daniel Reichert) is a gestalt shrink, a trendy school of psychology in the seventies, and given the complexity of this play and its conflicted characters, Dr. Dore should have his hands (and couch) full.

Irina’s son Constantine (Christopher Glenn Gilstrap) is an aspiring writer much in his famous mother’s shadow. Nina (Caroline Quigley) is a wannabe actress; her love for Constantine may be her top talent. Early in Act I, in a play-within-a-play, Nina appears on the boards of Constantine’s makeshift stage devoid of artifice, with the Pacific Ocean forming the backdrop. This appears to be a Chekhovian reference to the changes sweeping theatrical conventions when The Seagull was written. As Strindberg noted in a preface to his trendsetting 1888 drama Miss Julie, “The new wine has burst the old bottles,” as stage traditions were besieged.

Be that as it may, Constantine’s avant-garde play fails to catch on and success eludes the young man, causing him much angst. The struggle of artists to express themselves and find their voice in the world is one of the main themes of The Seagull. So are the ever-shifting erotic alliances, as the various characters amorously pursue one, then another, of the dramatis personae. If I got paid by the word, I’d detail these dalliances with you, as covering all of these tantalizing twists and turns would make me a moneybags. As Chekhov observes, relationships are not simply a “one-size-fits-all” affair.

Prior to this production, I was unfamiliar with The Seagull, although in 2009 I reviewed a WGTB rendition of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, which Heidi Helen Davis and Ellen Geer (who also co-starred as Lillian Randolph Cunningham, the clan’s Grande Dame) updated from turn-of-the-last-century Mother Russia to Virginia in the 1970s. BTW, in that Cherry, Willow Geer played another hippie-like character, Anna.

With its constantly changing romantic pairings, The Seagull put me in mind of Woody Allen, who in an interview with Stig Bjorkman once said: “I certainly love Chekhov. No question about that. He’s one of my favorites, of course. I’m crazy about Chekhov. I never knew anybody that wasn’t! People may not like Tolstoy. There are some people I know that don’t like Dostoyevsky, don’t like Proust or Kafka or Joyce or T.S. Elliot. But I’ve never met anybody that didn’t adore Chekhov.” (BTW, Allen’s co-star in The Front, Andrea Marcovicci, who was stellar as Woody’s love interest in that great 1976 anti-Blacklist movie, attended The Seagull’s premiere. Andrea told me she’d played Nina in an Off-Broadway production of it in or near Manhattan’s East Village.)

For this scribe, even more moving than The Seagull’s ever-moving amours was Trigger’s meaningful ruminations on the writing life. In particular, how writing about what goes on around one detaches the quill-bearing observer from the social swirl, removing one from the flow of daily life. Is writing about the world really a way to shut the world out? Hmm… To read Trigger’s – or, rather, Trigorin’s – entire rumination on the well-put weight of writing in Chekhov’s original.

Following an intermission, in Act II, even after attaining a measure of fame and fortune as a sci fi author, Constantine still has conflicting feelings towards his mother, who intriguingly, is living with Trigger (who has romanced the former’s lover, Nina, in one of the play’s many circuitous routes to the heart and other portions of the anatomy and soul), likewise a scribbler. In one scene where mother and son fight, the incestuous undertones were so strong that I thought that Irina and Constantine were going to start making out. (Once again, Susan Angelo proves herself to be as gifted a thesp as she is a director, as Angelo memorably helmed WGTB’s 2011 Palestine-themed My Name is Rachel Corrie – which, alas, is nowmore timely than ever.) Confronting all of the inconstancies turns out to be too much for Constantine. Oy gestalt!

Ellen Geer’s Malibu flourishes are onstage, but even as a character wields a surfboard, this so SoCAl adaptation doesn’t go overboard with the well-acted, well-directed production’s allusions to the ’Bu. Anton Chekhov remains the star of the show, as well he should be. Performed under the stars just a few miles north of the actual Malibu, with a soundtrack of seagulls keow-ing (punctuated by a real-life owl and other bird sounds in the sylvan glade), this rendering of Chekhov’s classic deserves to be on theatergoers’ checklist of plays to experience this summer. Check it out!

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is presenting The Seagull: Malibu through October 5 in repertory with: Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Strife; and Wine in the Wilderness, which premieres Saturday, August 9 at: 1419 North Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California 90290. For info and tickets: 310-455-3723.

NOTE TO DRIVERS: Give yourself extra time to drive to WGTB. The night I attended, Pacific Coast Highway was open, and so was Topanga Canyon Blvd. – although for a stretch of the latter, driving north from PCH traffic was only open one lane at a time.

To watch Peter Alsop’s Ebenezer’s Make Over, a feminist, anti-sexist adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,as performed at WGTB, see here.