Re-interpreting 'The Seagull' for the 21st Century with Broken Wings and Billy Bragg: Barbican Theatre Review

★★★★ | If there was one thing I did not expect to be doing on a Thursday evening, it was watching Cate Blanchett do splits while tap-dancing in a pair of glittery pants. 

This image, wildly shocking as it is, sums up the absurdity of life, love, and art in Thomas Ostermeier and Duncan Macmillan’s brand new adaptation of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. As with most of Chekhov’s works, the play itself needs little introduction – esteemed theatre actress Irina Arkadina (Blanchett) returns to her home in the countryside with her lover, Trigorin (Tom Burke), a famous author. Over the course of their stay, the couple’s presence in the town brings the seemingly inconsequential lives, desires and losses of the other characters to light, including those of her son, Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the ingenue, Nina (Emma Corrin), Irina’s brother, Sorbin (Jason Watkins), and the various individuals employed on their estate along with their families.

The company of The Seagull. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

Much like his other plays, The Seagull is wrought with profound philosophical ideas, shrouded in a narrative deceptive in its simplicity. Everyone is in love with everyone else, save perhaps Nina and Trigorin, who – for the first three acts, at least – seem to have mutual affection for each other. Nina, Trigorin, and Konstantin are simultaneously all in pursuit of creating good art, whatever that means to each of them, while Irina preens herself in a state of narcissism and self-assurance. Love and art, along with their futility, are the two domains examined in this three-hour passage of their stage.

This adaptation works hard to channel the humour into a comedy that often gets spun into a tragedy. Despite its relatively modern setting, Ostermeier plays with the age of the text, using the archaism of the language to lean into the sheer absurdity of it all – here are a group of well-read, probably well-off, bourgeoisie characters bemoaning subjects as frivolous as art and love, with an ageless lyricism, to the Barbican Theatre’s audience of likely upper-middle class, equally well-off theatregoers. The frivolity of their struggles is not lost on the characters either, as strategic moments of direct address with remarkable self-awareness elicit many a laugh from the audience. I must admit that the playful treatment of real emotional lows (such as depressed alcoholic Masha being “in mourning for her life”) keeps this production darkly entertaining, in a play that could be perceived as pointless if done wrong. Ironic, considering The Seagull’s central debate of “what’s the point of art?”.

To those who saw Matt Smith in An Enemy of the People last year, certain creative choices will feel familiar as Ostermeier once again incorporates many elements of Brechtian theatre. The actors often play to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and use moments of music to realign the audience with reality (The Milkman of Human Kindness by Billy Bragg being a steady choice for grappling with the play’s subject matter). Perhaps one of the most obvious nods to Ostermeier’s consistency in creative vision would be the gradual brightening of the house lights during Trigorin’s dialogue with Nina at the end of the second act – one that certainly made me reflect on the content of the words, but did not quite achieve the same effect as when it was deployed in An Enemy of the People. 

The company of The Seagull. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

That being said, a Brechtian aspect I did appreciate was the vast emptiness of Magda Willi’s set, with nothing on it but a dense crop of cornfield (which served as a key point for entries and exits), several deck chairs, and a wide expanse of cyclorama at the back. Reminiscent of something out of The Grapes of Wrath or Interstellar, its bareness served to recreate the isolation of an unremarkable, bleak countryside where time drips slowly past. Willi’s set shaped the countryside into an entity that hung over the characters throughout the play, alienating them inside their insular community and driving them to desperate actions. While the set created an overall atmosphere of stagnancy in the countryside, it is to the cast’s credit that the moments of stillness did not diminish any tension, keeping the play brimming with static energy. 

Language rife with hidden meaning and subtext was accompanied by production elements that were similarly abstract. For example, specific lines were spoken into dynamic microphones positioned at the lip of the stage. While this was intriguing enough to give me pause for thought, I ultimately couldn’t decide the significance of the action – was it to highlight moments where characters were speaking pure honesty, or did it serve another purpose? In a world of secret love and passion, desire and hatred, were we being given a glimpse into their truest thoughts? This was probably the biggest question I was left to ponder upon leaving. Or perhaps I was simply too intellectually stimulated by the complexity of the text to have any cognitive resources left for interpreting directorial choices. 

For a play written to be driven almost fully by its ensemble, this production did not disappoint. Much of Ostermeier’s Seagull was carried by its extraordinary cast. Cate Blanchett, of course, shines in her role of Irina Arkadina. With a certain surety, she wields absolute command over the stage. Her charisma fills it completely – in an entrance that will be remembered for years, she struts up with sunglasses and a bright purple jumpsuit, then proceeds to start rapping Hamlet into a microphone. Yet, in spite of the eccentricity, Blanchett’s Arkadina upholds equal parts grace and comedy and captures our respect throughout. In one great moment, she casts off her microphone and top, leaving her to grovel at Trigorin’s feet in a skin-coloured camisole, bare and vulnerable. When she speaks without any external amplification, the colossal space in the Barbican Theatre shrinks to an intimate little room; despite the power dynamic that this scene visually affords (in favour of Trigorin), Blanchett’s full control over the stage (and everyone on it) can never be doubted.  Yet, despite Blanchett’s name being the clear standout amongst her cast, the weight of her presence does detract from the others, who match her in stride.  

Cate Blanchett in The Seagull. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

In particular, Tanya Reynolds (of Sex Education and The Mirror fame) excels as Masha, bringing a tragic awkwardness that defines most of her roles. Draped in what can only be described as 21st-century emo goth garb, she skulks around the stage, offering responses in a characteristic deadpan that coaxes many a laugh from the audience. However, it is not until the penultimate act that the tragedy really reveals itself, and we are left aching with sympathy for a lovelorn girl. 

Emma Corrin, meanwhile, is the hidden powerhouse of the entire production. With vivacious youth, naivety, and ambition, Nina blazes onstage, hair cropped short, and stirs the audience with a heartfelt monologue about the soul of the Earth. Slight and pale, there is something particularly birdlike about her stature that reveals her to be the titular seagull. She holds her own opposite Burke’s Trigorin and emanates a visibly contained power that is only ever fully unleashed during a precious minute or so when a storm rages all around her. As lightning flashes and rain pours, she stays utterly still in the middle, empowered in her decision to leave her life in the countryside. 

With this production, Ostermeier has created a Seagull for the 21st century, bearing the weight of everything that the era offers: the scars of warfare, the advent of new technology in art, and its disconnect with an audience not forward-thinking enough to embrace it. Yet, the real draw of Chekhov’s writing comes from his examination of people at emotional extremes within the most mundane of circumstances. The Seagull does not deal with war-torn victims or those on the brink of freedom or death. We are looking at characters who teeter on the edge of insanity and obsess over whether love is too trifling a subject for the theatre, yet lose their minds for it... and in that, perhaps, lies the true struggle of the human condition.  

★★★★

The Seagull plays at the Barbican until 5 April.