Review: HSC's THE SEAGULL Soars At Gamut

Perhaps you have to be Russian, as is this writer, to appreciate that Anton Chekhov's THE SEAGULL is, as he insisted, comedy. For the Russian mind, any time almost everyone lives, there's comic relief. There's also some well-known tragicomedy in the play's history, as well as in the story - when Chekhov first had it produced, in 1896, Chekhov believed it a failure (despite some success), while Stanislavski's production of it for the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 was a resounding success. It's at Gamut Theatre right now, directed by Thomas Weaver, and you may decide for yourself how closely you align with the Russian zeitgeist.

You shouldn't have to ask if the book itself is a masterpiece; it's brilliantly written, full of biting sarcasm and vitriol phrased to avoid the points, but the question is what you will feel, and how you will react to what you feel, when you see it. That it is the essence of Chekhov, and of the old Russian soul, there's little doubt: everyone is at best a little disillusioned, a little dissatisfied, yearning a little to be elsewhere or with someone else. Almost everyone is a little bit lost, a little empty. And that holds true, even if, like Arkadina (Tara Herweg), the famed, if, by her son's thoughts, mediocre, actress, they see themselves as having just what they want - as it turns out, even fame, a fabulous wardrobe, and a famous, if equally banal, younger writer for a lover is not enough, when one is in want of the money to keep most of that in hand. But Arkadina, though not the star of the play, would believe that she is, for she sees herself as She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Her son, Treplev (JC Payne), sees through this, but it is not enough, as nothing ever is. He is an artist, gifted with writing ability, but neither Arkadina nor her friends are willing to credit him - whenever possible, Arkadina tries not to be around him, for a son of his age reveals her own. She's sent him to live in the country with Sorin (Jeff Wasileski), her older, sadder brother, but she sometimes descends upon Sorin's country home with her friends. When Treplev tries to make the point that she and the theatre she performs are stale and banal, that form needs to be shattered, she ruins the efforts of the performance he attempts to have staged at the house, in such a way as to guarantee that it is she who draws all the attention. Herweg paints Arkadina's narcissism and lack of interest in anything not about her beautifully, and makes Arkadina's exclusion of her son in her life a palpable thing.

Although much of the story is of Treplev's struggle - and Payne makes us feel every ounce of the weight on Treplev's shoulders - eyes fall on Trigorin (Jeff Luttermoser), which is unavoidable, as he's the greatest of Chekhov's male character depictions, even as he's of a weak character as a person. He recognizes his own defects as a novelist, far more than the women who adore both his writing and him do, and he also recognizes his own defects as a womanizer, willing to live off of Arkadina while encouraging a flirtation and later a disastrous affair with the young ingénue Nina (Amber Mann), who takes to the stage, and to Trigorin, against her father's and Arkadina's wishes. As much as the story is of Treplev's fight to become a great writer and to challenge form despite his mother's insults, the story is of Nina's on-stage growth and off-stage collapse. Luttermoser bears the responsibility that is playing Trigorin well, and Mann is positively luminous, especially in her performance in Treplev's disrupted play in the first act.

As with any good Russian play, frustrations abound. Treplev loves Nina, who loves Trigorin, who is the kept literary-star plaything of Arkadina, who fears the possibility of losing him as a sign of her own aging. Medvedenko (Andrew Nyberg, who makes one long for more stage time for Medvedenko), the country schoolteacher, is in love with Masha (Michelle Kay Smith), who is in love with Treplev, who is in love, again, with Nina. Polina (Francesca Amendolia), the housekeeper of Sorin, is married to the infuriating Shamraev (Frank L. Henley, Jr), the keeper of Sorin's estate, and a man who recalls all theatre and actors before Arkadina's time, but can't produce a carriage horse to save his life. It's no wonder that she's in love with Dorn (Clark Nicholson), the physician. Dorn is in love with no one, and misses his days of travel in his youth; in his fifties, he has turned himself into the observer of others' lives, rather than continuing to live his own, but he is therefore able to see what others cannot, including Treplev's talents that are shadowed by the blinding light of his mother.

Dorn is a fascinating character, made more so by Nicholson's understated portrayal; as opposed to the drama that the others seek to be part of, he realizes the value of standing back. Even Trigorin, who appears to desire no more than nature and a nice turn of phrase for his writing, enamored of fishing and thought, is immersed in the challenge of being kept as a lapdog versus sweeping younger women off their feet. Sorin, though like Dorn not part of the spinning relationship cycle, aches for his never having moved to the city and never having married, while Dorn has lived and experienced; Nicholson and Wasileski are the twin poles of observation for Treplev, though his sensitivity is such that even their monitoring of him cannot prevent tragedy; Wasileski projects well the frailty Sorin feels, while Nicholson gives a portrait of a man who sees himself as less vital than he in fact is.

These are characters who are miserable; the tragedy of the piece is, of course, that they have created their own miseries. One watches this play with a vague air of "surely you know better!" aimed at some characters, and "you must be joking!" at others; there is an urge to slap faces and wrists, to demand that they pull themselves together - but then, this is Russian theatre, fully infused with the self-reflective agony that is part of the character of those who have lived through Russian winters, and the poorly-visioned ennui of those who have spent far too much time in dachas on the Black Sea instead. Yet part of the genius of Chekhov, as with Shakespeare, is that their characters, regardless of seeming fixed in certain times and places, can be recognized as figures who also exist today, and around us - Arkadina as any number of self-centered screen divas of more looks than talent; Trigorin as one of many younger writers making the talk show circuit and hoping for a movie deal; Nina as all too many ingénues whose careers fall short and whose lives fall into soap opera; Treplev as the unsung writer who wants to accomplish more than he is able to grasp. All of the lives here exist both in Chekhov's mind and in our own time and our own experience. (This writer senses that Chekhov may in fact have predicted the Kardashians.)

The set, by Nyberg, is gorgeous, and it and the costumes assembled by Xiachen Zhou (also currently involved with HAMILTON in New York) are more than decoration; they are characters themselves, especially Nina's and Arkadina's dresses. The entire show, from cast to draperies, makes one long for a boiling samovar and a pot of cherry jam, and to put one's feet up near the fire in Sorin's drawing room during a Russian winter night.

At the new Gamut Theatre in Harrisburg, providing a touch of Saint Petersburg in central Pennsylvania this spring, and to great effect. Through March 26. Visit gamuttheatre.org or call 717-238-4111 for tickets and information.

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