cynikalitee - Tumblr blog

cynikalitee · 3 months ago

Text

Chekhov - Seagull + Cherry Orchard

Starting off with a review of a theatre show I've seen recently, and was the whole thought process in creating this account.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

BACKGROUND:

This show was essentially two shows in one. The Cherry Orchard, (1903) and The Seagull (1895), all wrapped up into a little bundle. The production was an amateur/university level, which explains some of the issues I'm going to get into, but not all of them. The staging itself was a dual split stage, and traverse stage, or in simpler words, each play was pretty much self contained to either the left or right side of the room, and the audience was split in half on either side of the stage.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

SCRIPT / PRODUCTION:

Given this production is all acted by students, I'm not saying I have super high standards for the acting itself, or the staging. But, you would think the professor of the subject, who wrote the damn play, who had based this script off of two critically acclaimed pieces from famous writer "Anton Chekhov", the "Chekhov" of the saying "Chekhov's Gun", yes, that Chekhov, AND, given the fact that this professor has been teaching the subject for at LEAST two decades, doing often more than one production a year, would produce a semi-decent script.

Thats not to say the script didn't have anything good from it, but I believe the good things that came from it, is from what remained from Chekhov. And, I gotta preface, I'm not a Chekhov dickrider: I didn't even know the guy produced plays until I watched this one, I just know the issues I found in this play were from the professor's writing, dually for the reason that I was informed that the professor likes to put a lot of his own interests into the play (which I will get into later), and for the fact that I previously worked in low-level theatre where the scriptwriter would OVERTLY put his political stances into it, and not in a good way either.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

PRODUCTION:

As you can tell, my main gripes are with the script. There were some fabulous things in what I watched; some really well developed characters and arcs within the Seagull, and a generally interesting story from the Cherry Orchard.

Though, again, looking at the director/professor here, I know that they try to put as many students in a show as possible. I am aware of that. However, going about it by putting two shows, which both are pretty saddening but for different reasons, next to each other diminished the value of BOTH of them. The Cherry Orchard on its own would have been an amazing tale about family, grief, financial issues and the problems in letting go of the past and finding what can be valued from the present felt, almost, dull next to the Seagulls admittedly slow start, but quirky, dramatic and melancholic family dynamics regarding mental health.

Writing that out, I can see the lines they tried to draw with both; mental health, family, grief, etc. But all I can say is that trying to split your focus between the two really pulled me out of BOTH of them, and I felt as a neurodivergent person I just happened to try and get invested in the one most interesting to me when my focus was failing, which happened to be the Seagull. I'll have the most to say about that, because of such, but I still definitely have comments on the Cherry Orchard.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

SEAGULL:

I really could tell this one was a grapple with mental health primarily, but used moral values, and theatre (in a meta way, the MC was a scriptwriter) to really hone in on that focus. On one hand, I must commend a majority of the actors involved in this; there really was some superb acting and characters here that really did add to the effect. The actors for the main character, Kostya, and Trigorin, the deuteragonist, really stole the show here in my opinion. The MC makes a little more sense; more stage time, time to develop their charcter, but the acting really was superb. Trigorin, really threw himself into the role. I really could believe that this person's character thought themselves so humble, so moral, so much better than those around him and "their little lives still have so much value don't they, theyre so simple!" type vibes, and could see no wrong with his actions; could keep on justifying WHY its right, WHY anyone in his position would do such a thing, when really, no. All the actors here did tremendous, but those ones, especially Trigorin, really stole the stage for me. But incoming the issues. My research led me to believe the main "moral" issues within this play were to be from the weird dynamics in family and love from the mains, or from Kostya, his mother Irina and their estrangement from lack of support, Kostya and his girlfriend Nina due to Kostya's failing mental health, Nina and Kostya due to Nina's "unrequired" crush on (triple her age) writer Trigorin, Trigorin and Nina due to wanting a "youthful type of passion", and Trigorin (ohyeah! basically Kostyas stepdad, also) and Irina because he literally wants to cheat on her and fuck her sons girlfriend what the fuck bro but then begins emotionally manipulating him what the fuck girl.

But yeah, the main point of "what the fuck" was meant to come from this dynamic; its messy, its gross, and its obvious that thats the issue here. But. More stuff got added in, and this is because of that Terrible, Horrible, No good, Very Bad and Very Dastardly, professor I was talking about.

There was a lot of, sort of, underage-y subplots? Or more just a breaking of societal dynamics that really shouldn't be broken. For instance, The Doctor in Seagull, research saying he's actually a lovely character, or better than most, became a sort of depraved doctor that borderlines assault-y, and is definitely some level of manipulative. This happened with a majority of the characters. Smoking just gets used to show "emo teenage rebellion I dont like the world gruhhhhh" instead of Hey This Is A Coping Mechanism That A Lot Of People Engage In (Smoking) I Just Happen To Do The New Variant Of (but also specifically making all the grunge/emo people do it, when funnily enough its actually the opposite crowd who I've personally observed doing it more????), but also the age gap between Trigorin and Nina became WAYYY more pronounced, the grandfather had comments toward Nina that the original didn't.

All I can say is that this play had my shoulders hunched, fists clenched, vibes in the air very much off the entire goddamn time of the show, and the message of "hey these dynamics (older teacher/younger learner" being BAD got very much lost in, well, everything. It also begs the question of if there is any personal motivations going into that one, and I would beg yes, but I personally dont have enough information on that one, and that could sort-of teeter into the no-no territory so we're gonna move on from that thought.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

THE ENDING OF THE SEAGULL

This deserves a little bit of a spacer from the rest of the stuff, but mainly because of the fact that the original play ends it, obviously, with a gun going off. Chekhov's gun, and all. The main character is meant to shoot themselves, and it would make for a very impactful message about mental health, and all that. Instead, the main character shoots pretty much every character in the room bar themselves and their mother. Which, at that point demonises the idea of a character struggling mentally, and "talking them off the pier" but also gives a sort of "HA justice" moment to the audience because each of the characters by that point had depth- were developed, were structured, and did do bad things. But, in killing them the main character essentially killed some of the message in that "oh these things weren't that deep they can be solved with a simple bang bang - oh look i can shoot trigorin in the dick because he's consumed with lust haha isnt that funny audience" when instead the audience could have walked away with the message that "these people, who may have your best interest in heart, are still inherently killing you and you should've cut them off". its depressing, and knowing that part of the reason is because the director/professor may have a fixation on mass-shootings is also really depressing. It just made it feel really flat, for a play that had a lot of. more concerning ideas presented in the characters, vigilante justice, or even just a crude shooting as an ending just doesn't cut it for the complexity theyre trying to go for.

This is not a reflection of the actors, but the script here.

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

The Cherry Orchard.

It was okay, not as interesting compared to the Seagull in my own personal, and humble, opinion, but again I focused on one so as to not lose both. The characters in this one were good, but had a lot less focus for about half of the cast; you could tell because some of the actors got less stagetime and lines that they just did not give a fuck anymore. Lines like "I love you don't leave me" would've been better performed by Gal Gadot, who is obviously renown for her lovely, emotional vocal work. But again, uni student, amateur, so I'll leave that thought there. The characters that were good, were good, but both plays had the issue of rushing lines; they didn't allow for a moment to sit, to linger, to think of their next thought, or word, or movement. It was literally a recital of lines. Okay, actually moving on this time.

it was fairly emotional, they portrayed the past staying in the land they were being forced to sell due to bankruptcy, but their having ignored the issue didn't allow them a healthy time to process an move on before selling the land, but instead sort of forced their hand until they were sobbing on the steps. I get it, i feel it. But again, I feel the professor basically fucked some of the characters over by making them essentially a stereotype. Flamboyant to cover being mean, etcetc. And, CSA was brought up in a manner showing the mother as being flawed, but didn't actually take any measures to show that the mother was wrong in the overt sense, but in a way did it in broader strokes showing how her incompetence was the downfall of her legacy, so in a way I'll sort of overlook that one, but largely because I'm not really one to speak for survivors of that. (Oh, and it didnt toy with the tone when that was said; it was said seriously, dramatically, and let it hang. good!).

--- --- ~ --- --- + --- --- ~ --- ---

CLOSING NOTES

A little haphazard, but thats to be expected with a first critique. Something I think I'll do instead of a ranking system of sorts, will be to apply a couple adjectives to the performance that I think fit it best.

Entertaining

Over-structured

Harrowing

0 notes