(seen at the afternoon performance on 13th March 2025)
You know this is going to be superior fare when prop maker extraordinaire Charlotte Neville manages to capture amazingly (for those close enough to see it) the look of pissed-off surprise on the dead seagull’s face when carried onto the stage.
The rest is almost as disconcertingly fun. Billy Bragg’s music features large from the start, as do electric buggies. Simon Medvedenko (Zachary Hart) is our drifter host, rarely short of a ranting Bragg number.
He may not know what time or day of the week it is, but he holds a stage and Masha (Tanya Reynold’s) heart. Reynold herself may not be always entirely certain, but convinces us anyway.
Anyway, Thomas Ostermeier’s direction and adaptation with Duncan MacMillan are as conversational as this pair of lovers. We get a novel rendering of the tale, updated to current times, an eccentric and self-centred group reflecting perfectly our era.
Much has been said of Magda Willi’s small cornfield set with deckchairs in a clearing in front. It works, thanks to Ostermeier’s free-flowing direction, the field disgorging and absorbing characters almost by magic – reminding us that they are of earth and must one day to it return. Meanwhile, why not lounge about and shred each others' emotions.
It does not stop the flights of fantasy. Irina Arkádina (Cate Blanchett) dances wildly to “Golden Brown” (it’s about heroin, in case you didn’t know), self-labelling t-shirt and sparkling trousers (Marg Horwell’s best costume creation) spelling out the actor whose career dazzles all and removes entirely from her view troubled creative son Konstantin Treplev (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Smit-McPhee opts to play the role as one internalising his struggle for the most part. A sound decision which makes the final gunshot resonate all the more loudly in our emotions.
He is lucky to have Nina Zaréchnaya (Emma Corrin) as aspiring actor seeing direction, muse and later obsession. Corrin has the remarkable ability to appear outwardly emotionally detached while showing simultaneously a maelstrom of pain. With him to reflect it, an excellent pairing.
Tom Burke manages to make Alexander Trigorin generously selfish. Helping others as he helps himself considerably more. With Blanchett as accomplice, compellingly revolting.
Sadly, Jason Watkins was unable to appear as Peter Sorin. Understudy John Vernon managed to fill his place and had the audience gasp with relief as reports of his on-stage demise proved premature.
This rather sums up the entire event. Annoyingly, the bouncy and unconventional opening scenes do not quite carry through the entire production. Had they done so, this could have been a freewheeling romp of epic proportions. Yet we still form deep emotional connections with the community by the lake.
Even though it does choose to stay boiling within its saucepan rather than foaming above, the content is hot enough to make the ending sear our hearts, just as the author intended in this knowing commentary on the human condition.
4 stars.