Playwright: Anton Chekhov, translated by Jean-Claude Van Itallie
At: Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark
Phone: 773-338-2177; $25
Runs through: May 27
Playwright: Anton Chekhov, adapted by Julie Levinson
At: GroundUp Theatre at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan
Phone: 773-218-3226
Runs through: May 13; $15
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
'Unrequited love is just something you read about in novels!' sniffs Masha Medvedenko in a feeble attempt at denial. When we consider that, literally, everyone in our play is pining for affections unreturned by their objects, the irony of her words is unmistakable. Those attempting to escape by choosing to marry themselves to their art find a certain solace—but even courting the muse is not without its frustrations.
The situation: Aging diva Irina Arkadina's latest consort is best-selling author Boris Trigorin, a relationship that irks her son, Constantine, a would-be playwright yearning for Nina Zarechnaya, the girl next door who longs to be an actress and falls for Boris at first sight. Our setting is Irina's country house, currently occupied by her brother, Peter Sorin, along with a droll caretaker, whose wife has been carrying on an affair with the local doctor, and whose daughter—the aforementioned Masha—is ga-ga over Constantine, ignoring a humble schoolteacher who showers her with doglike devotion.
Both productions of The Seagull currently playing in Chicago claim to have approached Chekhov's classic with an eye to modern sensibilities, but Julie Levinson's adaptation for GroundUp Theatre is the most radical, relocating the action from 1896 Russia to the resort community of Martha's Vineyard in the late 1970s with a text translated directly from the original Russian.
The innovations effected by this proposal go beyond merely dressing Masha in a Ramones T-shirt, however, or having the genial Dr. Dorn burst into a chorus of Stop In The Name of Love. A dimension sure to resonate with audiences in 2007 is that surrounding the frail Peter, usually played as an old man in his dotage, but now barely middle-aged, his regrets at having wasted his life's opportunities rendered all the more poignant as he faces his imminent death from an unnamed disease ( which we easily guess, given our hindsight regarding Levinson's period ) .
So the more things change, the more they stay the same? Absolutely not, says director Sabrina Lloyd, who refuses to admit no gain in the 80 years since Chekhov's peers resigned themselves to inertia and ennui. In the final confrontation between Constantine and Nina, Emily O'Neill delivers the famous 'I'm a seagull—no, I'm an actress' speech, not as a weary lament for her thwarted dreams, but a defiant declaration of triumph over personal sorrows.
For playgoers preferring Chekhov in traditional mode, Raven Theatre offers a translation by Jean-Claude Van Itallie, whose own experimental leanings are curiously unevidenced in a text as stilted and academic as its predecessors. Some of the actors had succeeded in fighting the ensuing stiffness by the opening night performance, while others appeared to have succumbed to it, making for a certain unevenness in tone.
The Raven ethos is always to put the story first, however, and the cast assembled by Michael Menendian paints a vivid picture of personalities recognizable today despite their quaint speech and period trappings. These include Melissa Nedell's hard-drinking Masha, Paul Dunckel's hack-writer Boris and Chuck Spencer's commitment-shy Dorn. Enhancing the old-world atmosphere is Peter Storms' score of czardas-laced incidental music.
'Most people live miserable, anonymous lives!' Nina insists—a strange declaration for a play its author purports to be a comedy. But tragedy plus time engenders a wry humor at human foibles. So long as ambitions exceed rewards—and when have they ever not done so?—we will see ourselves ( or our less self-aware neighbors, anyway ) in Chekhov's unfortunate contemporaries.