Comic Suicide: Chekov’s “The Seagull”

For our anniversary, Manny and I saw the Classic Stage Company’s production of Chekov’s “The Seagull.” Like any time-honored masterpiece, the play overwhelmed me to the point where I hesitate to comment, since whatever I write will naturally be trite, silly, or as the characters often complain, “boring.” 

That’s a major joke in the play, of course: writers worrying over their precious and ceaseless words and whether those words are “great art,” or strange, ridiculous, and pathetic. 

The character central to the story is an amateur writer (like me) and his artistic limitations compared to his aspirations torment and infuriate him, which sometimes amuses his family and other times worries them, seeing as he’s so unbalanced and perpetually miserable. Add to the mix his failure in love and eventual, off-stage suicide and oh boy, what fun! But it was.

The play shows us a successful writer, too, who is a slavish lover to the bad writer’s famous actress mother. (Famous actress mother and failed writer son quote Hamlet to each other before the son stages his very bad debut play for the family’s entertainment.)

“The Seagull” offers the audience two actresses and two writers—men. The mother and her lover are famous. The son and the aspiring actress with a sad fate (whom the son loves throughout) overreach. They share an ambition for fame (writers were more famous then—that’s my guess) and an ability to create transcendence, which they associate with fame. Or at least the young actress does. The poor bedeviled son is less sanguine. He’s desperate and distraught and hilarious.

All the characters are hilarious and sophisticated in that they love laughing at themselves and their pretensions—it’s all such a game. Except they love playing the game and are so adept at it because it mirrors them so well. They see that. They love looking at themselves and laughing at life, because, really, what else is there to do? Cry?

A marvelous and witty commentary on the privileged (i.e., not serfs), “The Seagull,” as directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev, who is the Artistic Director of the Moscow New Drama Theatre, resonated with the audience. The gestures, the language, and its inflection felt familiar, I think, to the NYC audience, spring 2008. For example, when the uncle is dying in Act Four and the bon vivant doctor chides him for fearing death, he says only those who believe in an after-life fear death and that’s only if they fear punishment for their sins.

“—what sins have you committed? You’ve worked in a government office for twenty-five years.”

The characters wink here, because certainly no one in government has any occasion to sin.

In Act Three, the failed writer son and famous actress mother argue, initially about the successful writer (the mother’s lover), who is now pursuing the young actress, whom the son loves. At first the mother and son accuse each other and apologize, rant and then try to connect. Diane Wiest playing Irína looks up at one point, saying “Such a bad mother!” I couldn’t find the line in the old paperback of Chekov’s plays but the timing and Wiest’s beautiful, wry delivery were memorable enough so that I felt compelled to look it up.

In the same scene, the same argument quickly turns into a shouting match.

Irína: Miserable decadent!

Treplév (her son): Run along to your precious theatre and act in your rotten feeble plays!

Irína: I’ve never acted in such plays. Leave me alone! You couldn’t write a tenth-rate farce. Provincial shopkeeper! Scrounger!

Treplév: Miser!

Irína: Symbolist!

Diane Wiest hurled that last accusation, so suited to the play’s attitude toward symbolism (the seagull’s cry is haunting but the carcass hauled on stage is ridiculous) so fiercely, I looked it up, too.

My copy has Irína’s final insult as: Tramp!

Maybe the differences are in translation. But if the production took liberties here, they were stand-out choices. Chekov’s “The Seagull” is a masterly, classic comedy and could even fit Aristotle’s proclamations regarding comedy. If you interpret Treplév as better off dead (not inarguable, really), his fortune has risen. If you can’t countenance suicide as a rise in fortune (an equally valid argument), you might consider Irína the play’s most sympathetic character. Chekov may well have sympathized with her since in general his most egocentric and callous character alone finds fulfillment. You might say vain, selfish Irína’s fortune has risen now that she’s no longer weighted down by a soul-sick and mentally ill son. Her reaction and everyone else’s to the suicide is oddly diffuse: everyone disperses with an air of confusion, and some of them softly but not sadly hum.

The original production in Petersburg 1896 was a disaster and according to one essay, its failure sent Chekov into an enduring funk. It’s easy to imagine an amateur—or no, let’s say—clumsy production coming across as ponderous, not funny. And while I personally side with the overreaching failures, Chekov reportedly viewed the rich and famous as rightfully worthy. Even so, Irína can only be admired as an actress. Diane Wiest was right—such a terrible mother!

Like “Hamlet,” I well understand how people might devote a scholarly life to Chekov’s writing. And I’ve no doubt written past my limitations here. But the cast requires attention. The actors and actresses were extraordinary.

So, in order of appearance:

Medvendénko, a schoolteacher:  GREG KELLER
Másha, daughter of Shamráyev:  MARJAN NESHAT
Pyótr, Irína’s beloved older brother: JOHN CHRISTOPHER JONES
Tréplev, Irína’s son: RYAN O’NAN
Yákov, a hired man: RYAN HOMCHICK
Nina, daughter of a wealthy neighbor, aspiring actress: KELLI GARNER
Paulína, wife of Shamráyev: ANNETTE O’TOOLE
Dorn, the local doctor: DAVID RASCHE
Shamráyev, retired army Lt., who manages Pyótr’s farm: BILL CHRIST
Irína: an actress: DIANE WIEST
Trigórin, a novelist: ALAN CUMMING

Also posted at newcritics.