The Seagull (8/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 98 minutes

PG-13

This is the play that was the game-changer for Doctor/writer Anton Chekhov. When first performed in 1896, the actors were laughed and hooted off the stage. But when the legendary Konstantin Stanislavsky directed and starred in a second production two years later, it got a boffo response from audience and critics, allowing Chekhov to go on to become one of the great playwrights of all-time. Chekhov himself described it as “a comedy with three female roles, six male roles, four acts, a landscape, much conversation about literature, little action, and five tons of love.”

The characters Chekhov created are incomparable. Irina (Annette Bening) is the glue, the materfamilias, a renowned actress who is spending time at her summer home with her son, Konstantin ((Billly Howle), her lover Boris Trogorin (Corey Stoll), her ill brother and co-owner of the estate, Sorin (Brian Dennehy), Konstantin’s girlfriend Nina (Saoirse Ronan), who lives nearby, the estate manager, Shamrayev (Glenn Flesher) and his wife Polina (Mare Winningham) and their daughter Masha (Elizabeth Moss).

Affections are confused. Konstatin is hot for Nina, who gets the hots for Boris, who is infatuated with Nina while Marsha is infatuated with Konstantin in the same blind manner as Konstantin feels about Nina. Polina loves Dorn (Jon Tenney), a local doctor and ladies’ man, but while he likes her, it’s not love.

The dialogue (Chekhov and Stephen Karam) is stimulating and thought-provoking. The only thing I really did not like about it is the dull cinematography (Matthew J. Lloyd) which is dark and drab when the mountain lakeside location could have been beautiful and spectacular.

Despite that, translated by a terrific cast this is as heavy as you might expect, but well worth it.