A stellar cast fails to bring real passion to Chekhov's classic family saga
The Seagull Royal Court Theatre, London SW1
For his production of The Seagull, Chekhov's analysis of fame and its attendant cruelties, Ian Rickson might have thought using a largely celebrity cast was a rather brilliant idea. Unfortunately, the result is patchy, at best.
Kristin Scott Thomas is Arkadina, the celebrated actress whose arrival at her brother's countryside summer home with her lover, the renowned writer Trigorin (Chiwetel Ejiofor, another red-carpet habitué), causes such a commotion. Scott Thomas's heavy-lidded beauty is certainly magnetic enough, and she knows how to use a stage. But somehow she has not managed a performance as measured and brimming with Chekhovian subtext as she recently delivered in Three Sisters.
Arkadina is a vain solipsist, an unwholesome product of greasepaint and the standing ovation, and she has heaps of luvvie put-downs that certainly get the laughs. But Scott Thomas is too quick to paint her as a theatrical nightmare, thus achieving a slightly monotonous caricature of a thorough bitch, which was fine for Gosford Park, but is not what one needs for this nuanced tragedy.
One has to believe, for a start, that Arkadina is capable of showing some vague stirrings of maternal love for her hapless son Konstantin (Mackenzie Crook), who has written and devised a play to welcome her home. She shows not the slightest interest in it, or him, which is as one might expect. However, her remorse, when it is clear she has offended him, is so shallow as to be non-existent. Indeed, Scott Thomas shows real passion only in the form of jealousy, directed at Konstantin's leading lady, the beautiful young neighbour Nina.
Casting Mackenzie Crook (most familiar from the big screen as the hapless sailor in Pirates of the Caribbean and from TV as the even more dismal Gareth in The Office) in the role of Konstantin could have been a master stroke. Indeed, Crook's thin droopiness and spectacular eyebags are ideal for the neurotic, edgy young man terrified of failing to emerge from the shadow of his flamboyant mother. Unfortunately, Crook seems unable to move from play-reading his lines (in a new translation by Christopher Hampton) to actually acting them. His dialogues with Nina (Carey Mulligan) are particularly wooden, and convey no sense of the anguish Konstantin suffers as Nina is increasingly drawn to the enigmatic Trigorin. He is great at playing sullen, however; and pushing away the lovelorn Masha by petulantly shoving her in the mouth indicates that Crook might be able to raise his game, and get to grips with being on stage.
Although this Seagull is beautifully designed by Hildegard Bechtler with an appropriate amount of peeling paint and rotten furniture, and spectacularly lit by Peter Mumford, it feels rather skewed. Rickson's last production as artistic director of the Royal Court comes alive not with a mother/son battle, but the love story between Nina and Trigorin, who falls in love with the ingénue from next door. Mulligan and Ejiofor deliver spectacular performances: he is an arrogant writer, flattered by her attentions, yet he is also touched by Nina's tidal wave of trembling adulation, best summed up by the trouble she takes to engrave a medallion with a meaningful quotation from one of his books.
Ejiofor's Trigorin is torn between a wish to maintain the status quo, and a burning need to experience "true love" - an argument for the extramarital affair, and probably as common in Chekhov's day as it is in ours.
There are some important supporting performances. Katherine Parkinson is a quite brilliant Masha, in mourning for her life, with tousled hair, a gravelly voice and a penchant for the vodka. And Art Malik delivers what must be the definitive Dorn, the smooth doctor who, at 56, is still jolly pleased with himself for his ability to make women's knees tremble, but whose own hands shake uncontrollably when the grim end comes.
For further information and booking details log on to: www.royalcourttheatre.com
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