Updated Chekhov hits the beach in
Berkeley
Robert Hurwitt
Monday, March 29, 2010
San
Francisco Chronicle
It's one thing to consider the humorous implications
of the lives of disquiet and desperation in a Chekhov
"comedy" set in 19th century rural Russia.
It's quite another when his plays are transposed to
our own time.
Many such moves come off as gimmicky. Emily Mann's A Seagull in the Hamptons, in its Shotgun Players West Coast premiere at Ashby Stage, is a bright exception. The satire of theatrical and literary artistes in Chekhov's "Seagull" makes a bit more sense when moved close to contemporary New York. The tragic notes of the unrequited lovers, self-absorbed elders and despairing youth seem more immediate.
Even set in an upscale Long Island beach community - with names, occupations and cultural references updated and relocated - Mann's rewrite is very faithful to the original in most respects. Chekhov's "comedy in four acts" becomes two, handsomely framed by director Reid Davis on Robert Broadfoot's jutting sandbox of a beach and tasteful living room.
Mann strips away mostly excess verbiage and some subsidiary action to focus on the poignant fates of the aspiring young artists: Alex (Liam Callister), whose playwriting ambitions are belittled by his stage star mother Maria (Trish Mulholland); and his wannabe actress lover Nina (Kelsey Venter), who gets seduced and abandoned by Maria's famous author lover Philip (Alex Moggridge).
Anna Ishida's goth-girl Milly, who lusts for Alex, and her suitor, Andy Alabran's nerdy Harold, seem well played but underwritten. Other actors aren't quite as present, though Richard Louis James' kindly uncle and Beth Deitchman's unhappily adulterous Paula register well.
Mann and Davis take Alex's usually lampooned or ambiguous talents and make him more clearly a promising writer, but Callister lacks the depth to carry it off. Venter's buoyant, then distressed Nina anchors her part of the pathos, particularly in her giddy flirtation with Moggridge's callow-urbane Philip. Mulholland is a comically histrionic has-been diva, bristling at a mention of Meryl Streep and ridiculously girlish as Shakespeare's Juliet.
If Chekhov's assertion that this is comedy makes you bristle, that may be his and Mann's point. This Seagull doesn't quite soar, but its flight is worth watching.
