The aesthetic is rigorous, the emotional scope is tightly compressed and the intent is relentlessly pure, but that’s only expected in Samuel Beckett’s “The Seagull.” Wait what? It’s clear that the play is actually by Chekhov but despite a handful of insightful authentic performances, including a flamboyant Emilia Clarke performance, the three-dimensional writing is often flattened by Beckett’s potentially controlling voice from director Jimmy Lloyd (“Betrayal”). The abstraction of the play “Cyrano de Bergerac” unleashed the energy of that play; But when playing a similar game here, its director delivers a more uneven production than is great.
Lloyd’s presentation is striking at first. The ancient Chikovite naturalism was discarded to create a samovar-free zone. In this contemporary indefinite presentation, there are no props. The set is a solid white overhead lit plank box with actors dressed in status-free blue and gray, seated in a row of matching nondescript plastic chairs.
Although this may seem at first, the chairs and largely seated actors vigorously evoke the practice of legendary stage and dance maker Pina Bausch (who died 13 years earlier). Its influence may also be the reason why actors incomprehensibly barefoot in productions often prevent them from standing, let alone moving dynamically through space.
The understatement was intensified by dealing with Anya Reiss’ fleet lines and the highly playable version of Chekhov. His distinguishing feature is that although he writes people whose life choices are always bogged down by circumstance and inertia, his smallest role is impressively alive. Here, these wonderful characters, and the actors who play them, end up compromising by slowly and deliberately introducing a one-size-fits-all.
On the upside, with everyone wearing visible head mics (band shades Complicite and beyond), they can – and do – whisper lines, bringing them closer to thoughts than speech. This is a welcome relief from the current common practice of over-expressing emotion with cool cryptic subtext turned into exaggerated text. Lloyd’s technique has the welcome effect of drawing the audience into the intensity of the drama and making the audience really listen and do imaginative work.
But the big downside is that all this robs the evening of the actors’ energy. At its weakest, it feels like a read. And for audiences unfamiliar with the play, the stakes are likely to remain dangerously low because all the (hyper-focused) moments come at the expense of the drama all together. For a production that clearly prides itself on getting everything back to basics, it’s troubling that the events of the play, including Konstantin’s suicide, aren’t entirely clear.
Ironically, for a production built on such a standardized approach, it is the strongest performers that push against their limits. Indira Varma is as gloriously cheerful and effortless as the selfish actress and mother from Hell, Arkadina. Coward’s brilliant actress, Varma isn’t just a sinister comedy as she pulls her vacillating lover Trigorin back, it also powerfully suggests the desperation behind her beautifully preserved style with just a small glimpse of her pain.
Gerald Kidd also shines as the all-seeing Dr. Dorn, undisturbed by any turmoil, whether it’s suggesting overwhelmed that ailing Arkadina’s brother simply needs to take paracetamol or dispense with kindness. The effect is quiet, it is noticeably unobtrusive performance, still in deep water.
As Nina, who debuted in the West End, Emilia Clarke is very honest. Her eyes and ready smile grow larger as she blossoms under the attention of the handsome Trigorin Tom Rhys-Harries. Armed with Reese’s colossal version of the famous actress’s speech versus the seagull in the final scene, she simply wins over the show. Like countless experienced stage actors who have fallen into the trap of showing Nina her unrequited pain and desperate love, Clark simplifies: She’s honest. It’s a quiet and unpretentious performance to stir up honesty.
She plays Konstantin, her mortal friend and emotional hub of the play, the excellent and innovative Daniel Monks who takes a quasi-religious production approach. His portrayal of a severely depressed young man is invariably honest, but his performance is so internal and unimpressive that he often feels devastatingly disconnected.
Constantine, a writer, yearned for theater to abandon its hasty practices and adopt new forms. Lloyd’s production obviously wants to do that as well, but the chosen format is oddly less than the new one and often stifles the content.
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