Anton Chekhov changed the direction of theater in the 20th Century by reversing the 19th Century convention of using dramatic, overtly theatrical actions to advance the plot and instead created plot out of nothing more than character interaction. His plays, like “The Seagull,” engage us with an assemblage of distinctive individuals, none of whom is significantly more important than the others, and permit us to interpret the drama inherent in conflicts between people with radically different values and with profound conflicts within themselves. It is an endlessly rich and challenging arena for actors because the truth of their character and their character's motivations are always submerged beneath the events of the play, and are both as contradictory and coherent as the actions of people in real life. Doing Chekhov is also a very high theatrical ambition, especially for a community theater, and the success of any given production, like this one, should not be measured against some absolute standard of success or failure, but rather in terms of the relative achievement of any attempt at very high art.

Key City Public Theatre in Port Townsend is an ambitious and talented group of amateur theater artists and their best work is comparable to the best of fringe theater in Seattle. Director Lawrason Driscoll has a substantial background as a professional actor, and his experience and insight are evident in the quality of the performances he drew from this entire ensemble. Perhaps the first and best accolade is that the cast does achieve ensemble, the distinctive individuals feel like they all belong to this time and place, to this remote area of Czarist Russia, and that their lives are interwoven and interdependent in ways that make this a whole world. The next greatest strength of this “Seagull” is that the quality of the performances are quite balanced, especially important for a playwright who rejected “leads” and “secondary” characters. Finally, the movement of the play is crisp and well-focused, the tendency of he script to be “talky” never becoming a problem because of the vitality of the performers.

My only criticism of the production, and where it falls short for me of fully realizing Chekhov's dramaturgy, is in the complexity of the relationships between characters, the multiple ways in which they satisfy and deny each other's needs, the urgency of their desire to define their place in life and in relationship to one another. Again, this was not so much a failure as an insufficiency, an un-mined richness left in the play's vein.

In this “symbolist”  drama, the role of the celebrated actress Madame Arkadina represents not only a particular person but the entire manner of 19th Century theatre. It is embodied in her self-involvement, her melodramatic overstatement, her vanity and artifice, her inability to connect with anyone on an empathetic, genuine level and her desperate need to be in the center of the spotlight, to gather all of the light on herself, even that reflected off of others.  Her son Treplev's rejection of that style of theater is an outward manifestation of his rejection of her, but it is also a manifesto of what Chekhov wanted to do with the stage. In their relationship are all of the play's central themes: a desire for love, an unavoidable impulse to cruelty, a desperation to escape the inertia of the past and to find meaning and energy for the future, an integration of purpose and satisfaction in one's lifework. All of the other characters will carry one or more of those themes and they will be the dynamic which connects them as a community. That is a lot of sub-text for actors to express and while I don't think it was fully accomplished, there was a great deal of good work done in creating these engaging characters. 

I particularly liked Mark Cherniack as the successful writer, Trigorin, who hates writing almost as much as he hates his success. Cherniack played the role with a clarity and directness that felt natural and only lacked a certain degree of desperation in being trapped by his talent and accomplishment into a life he does not love. I also admired Angela Gilbert as the beautiful young actress, Nina, whose passion to be a part of that new theatre results in unsatisfying and blatantly commercial jobs that are a belittling compromise of her artistic ideals. I loved her brightness and intensity in the first two acts, and the wizened sense of experience she brought to the fourth act, two years later than the play's beginning. Michelle Hensel gave Irina Arkadina the sense of theatrical experience she needed, and commanded her central position in the household, but lacked a bit of the edge and ruthlessness I think the character demands. Similarly, her son Treplev was played with sensitivity and understated expression by Guy Sands, but never quite had the desperation and passion that could make his artistic ambition into an obsession. Amanda Steurer played the melodramatically bored and ennui-inebriated Masha with some good physical comedy and an especially amusing drunk scene at the beginning of the third act.

I respect and admire this production of “The Seagull” and while it may not be everything this great play is capable of being, it is a serious and commendable performance. The intimate staging was well-suited to this most interior of dramas and the costuming by Ginger McNew was elegant and accomplished in any context. I think the reason why Chekhov never grows old is that this country physician and great writer so loved human beings and the human condition, and believed that the stage was the best place for living, breathing human beings to observe the lives of their fellow human beings, and perhaps to better understand our common circumstance, trying to make sense of our lives by better understanding one another.

PICTURED ABOVE: Mark Cherniak and Angela Gilbert in "The Seagull" at Key City Public Theatre in Port Townsend.
PHOTO BY: Phil Baumgaertner