The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming

For my birthday, K took me to the see new production of The Seagull. We had front row seats at the right corner of the stage area! The audience sat on three sides. The actors raced passed right in front of us when they make their entrances, storming onto the stage, in order to utter their witticisms, self-deprecations, and iterations of despair and/or joy. The experience was very exciting but disallowed us from stretching out or legs lest we trip one of the stars. A few thoughts:

• in the last 20 years, I've only seen "deconstructions" of Chekhov done by the Wooster Group and truth be told it was so good to see an interpretation of the play (by Viaccheslav Dolgachev) rather than a pretentious reconsidering.
• Dianne Wiest, who recently shocked me with her performances in In Treatment, was even better than I suspected. She was furiously exciting to watch as Arkadina. At times I felt as if she/Arkadina looked at me with disdain, disagreeing with my colorful green shirt when she responded with disdain at one of her Konstantin's challenges. When Wiest wasn't onstage, I grew impatient, always eager for her return. Yet I wanted her to be able to change outfits! After all Arkadina needs to laud herself with the line "say what you want about me, but I know how to dress!"
• Chekhov is very funny, even though the play ends darkly--particularly in this production which digs into the humor and irony embedded in the first three acts.
• I now realize tha Alan Cumming is a good actor. I had found him almost annoying before but his Trigorin was entracingly manipulative and he was never overshadowed completely by the necessary histrionics of Dianne Wiest.
• the play documents the burgeoning entrance of the aesthetics of modernism--sounds pretentious, but the character of the son and his artistic aspirations, even though they are defeated in the play, also suggests that theatre that aspires to naturalism will no longer be possible. Chekhov uses humor and plays within plays to attack "the old ways."
• Americans, including the Wooster Group, don't understand this. The Wooster Group adds postmodern schtick rather than mining the radicalism of Chekhov's work itself. Other Americans view the play too seriously, overlooking the subversive wit that challenges the enterprise of traditional theatre itself.
• the best scene occurs when Arkadina realizes that Trigorin has been tempted by a younger woman. Flattering him, his talent, his importance, she ensnares him again. He can't help but respond to her over the top adoration (when a man is prisoner of his own ego, he is vulnerable to anyone who utters sweet words of praise) . After they embrace, reunited, they part and laugh, realizing that they have repeated one of the rituals of their relationship, and each has been acting up a storm. Also, the actors move momentarily out of their parts, laughing and enjoying each other's performances, as a way of contining to play their roles. Arkadina and Trigorin need to perform for each other in order to keep their relationship going; and at the same time Wiest and Cumming salute the wit in each other's acting. Total virtuosic genious, well directed.