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Outdoor staging of 'Seagull' flies high- Boston Globe (see full review below)TheatreZone presents Chekhov in the Park, our third annual presentation of free outdoor performances in Mary O'Malley Park from July 12-24, alternating between performances in English and Spanish. The Seagull by Anton Chekhov takes place beside a lake on a Russian country estate, and we will be taking advantage of the park's natural settings to environmentally stage this production with each act played in a unique location. The Seagull takes a tragicomic look at the tangled relationships of a volatile artistic family, and examines questions of art and nature, and especially the nature of art. This play marked the beginning of Chekhov¹s fruitful collaboration with Stanislavsky, the founder of the single most important theatre and conservatory for acting in the 20th century, the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). TheatreZone began staging bilingual works in the park in 2003 with Lorca in the Park:Blood Wedding and continued last summer with The House of Bernarda Alba. This summer we were inspired by the park's waterfront location to take on The Seagull. Both our English and Spanish language casts feature several TheatreZone regulars, including 4 veterans of last summer's Edinburgh tour, and we are also thrilled to welcome several newcomers to the Boston theatre scene including actors from Brazil, France, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, and Argentina. Mark Warhol, also recently relocated to Boston from Montreal, is composing original music for the production to be performed by Ensemble Warhol.
July 12-24 |
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Cast/Spanish:
Cast/English:
Composer- Mark Warhol
Director/understudy- Danielle Fauteux Jacques |
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BOSTON GLOBE REVIEW
Outdoor staging of 'Seagull' flies high
By Thomas Garvey, Globe Correspondent | July 21, 2005
CHELSEA -- Most people think of Anton Chekhov as a playwright of the interior -- at least the psychological interior, as his work inspired the inward style of acting that still dominates the stage today. But with its new staging of ''The Seagull," performed in both English and Spanish on the lawn of Mary O'Malley Park, Chelsea's intrepid TheatreZone makes a strong case for Chekhov al fresco. This double outing may offer few fresh insights into the master, but its natural setting is always evocative -- live specimens of the title avian often hover overhead -- and the slow sunset and deepening gloom provide ready-made atmosphere for the play's unfolding pathos.
The decision to follow the action across the park likewise proves inspired; we traipse after Chekhov's bored bohemians as they traverse their estate from lake shore to lawn; in one charming gambit, we happen upon the actors already reading from a book and quietly join them. The effect is straightforward and pleasingly intimate, close to the ideal relationship between player and public.
Such concerns are central to ''The Seagull," which follows a covey of arty aristocrats summering on a lush provincial lake. Aging actress Arkadina desperately tries to hang on to both her youth and her young paramour, the hack novelist Trigorin, even as son Kostya desperately tries to forge a new form of art while chasing the stage-struck Nina. She, of course, has her eye on Trigorin. It's a classic triangle (or rhombus, if we count Kostya's issues with Mom), but Chekhov, finding his poignant dramatic voice for the first time, subverts the melodrama to produce a haunting meditation on the vagaries of life and art, all while floating between comedy and tragedy without ever touching down in either.
The TheatreZone casts prove more at home with comedy than with tragedy, but both groups have a nice sense of ensemble, and to be fair, simply performing the play straight, with no high-concept chaser, means much of Chekhov's deeper significance necessarily seeps through. And Chekhov in Spanish proves something of a treat: The language's lyrical tang brings out a rough music in the master that English somehow lacks.
Two actors, Paul Shafer and Alain Groene, actually did bilingual double duty. Groene, while too sexually charged a presence for the self-effacing Trigorin, brought a thoughtful frankness to both performances, but Shafer was a far better fit in his English-speaking role. A last-minute drop-out prompted director Danielle Fauteux Jacques to take the pants role of Kostya in the Spanish cast, where she acquitted herself well, giving the English-speaking Kostya, Vladimir Aseneta, a run for his money.
Another standout in the English-speaking cast was Becca Lewis as the barbed, heartbroken Masha. Meanwhile, in the central role of Arkadina, the Spanish-speaking Eliana Stratico was appealing but too broad; Shelley Brown did a subtler job of evoking her actressy manner in English. The two casts differed most sharply in their Ninas. In Spanish, Maria Schaedler had just about the right nervous spark; in English, the lovely Sandha Khin never hinted at the neurotic fissures that would lead to her collapse.
Some would argue that without a top-flight Nina, ''The Seagull" can never really soar, but thanks to the hard-working actors, these productions often take wing.
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