Chekhov at the Beach
Robert Avila
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
The San Francisco Bay Guardian

A fiery young man (Liam Callister) stages a beachfront play starring his equally ardent first love (Kelsey Venter) for the benefit of the familiar flock of seasonal neighbors out on Long Island — and the professional and spiritual punishment of his commercially successful and completely self-absorbed actress-mother (Trish Mulholland). Youthfully high-spirited and talented, the world (especially out here) might have proved his oyster, but things soon fall apart, disintegrating and melding again on the shoreline (handsomely evoked in Robert Broadfoot's scenic design) as if he and the other nine characters in this shrewd, droll and melancholic play were so many sand castles. Emily Mann's free adaptation of Chekhov's Seagull captures the essence of his early "comedy" — very much a human comedy, brimming with pain, turmoil and tragedy in equal measure with laughter, love and folly — and yet manages to be completely of its own (our own) time and place, so effortlessly as to seem a little miraculous. It helps, naturally, that director Reid Davis has assembled a very solid and enjoyable ensemble cast for this wonderfully tailored Shotgun Players production. The opening play-within-a-play is apt several times over, but not least because this is a satisfying night of theater for anyone who loves theater, and anyone else who still doesn't know it yet.