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The Russian American Theater Center’s

“The Seagull 2288” by Anton Chekhov

Directed by Alexandre Marine

Project Synopsis:

“The Seagull” is one of Chekhov’s most enigmatic plays. Written at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century and produced at the Moscow Art Theater, “The Seagull” altered the entire course of development of modern theater and dramaturgy. Each subsequent new theater generation has searched for its own truth in this play and the answer to the artist’s primary question: What is Art?

In the contemporary world of mass media and communications, that same question takes on a tragic tone because the line between art and artifice at the start of the third millennium has been practically destroyed. Immersed and inculcated as we are by stylish, heavily-designed cliches, we would sooner watch a fashion show or the news from Iraq than try to understand who we are and what is happening to us. To address these basic questions is the function of art.

The Russian American Theater Center’s project “The Seagull 2288” offers the New York audience a completely modern play, outside the contexts of time and place, the action of which develops within the framework of Shakespeare’s concept of “theater within theater,” or “a play within a play.” The set itself consists of a stage and an area for an audience, as constructed by Konstantin for the presentation of his first play. Actual audience members entering the theater can immediately identify with the characters of “The Seagull 2288,” since they themselves have also come to see a play. Konstantin’s play, however, will flop disgracefully, but its unrealized energy begins to fracture and wreck the fates of all those around it. The stage of Konstantin’s home-made theater remains throughout the entire play, itself becoming a kind of ominous spectre of vengeance for something unfinished, unreceived and misunderstood, which will ultimately take the life of its creator.

In other words, the idea of the interdependence of art and reality evolves in a space which is itself interactive as a stage and an audience. The characters of “The Seagull 2288” end up on Konstantin’s stage during key, critical turning points in their lives or when they desire to get “closer to God.” The theatrical result is at once tragic and comic. Tragic, because everything is happening to these characters for real, and comic because we see that this is all onstage, and everything that happens onstage is artificial. In addition, two live musicians underscore this dual reality by accomplishing not only the musical elements of Konstantin’s “play,” but also giving us jazz interpretations of all the real sounds which arise during the course of the “actual” action of the play as a whole.

We will never be able to see Konstantin’s play to the end, but perhaps the key to understanding the events of “The Seagull” lies hidden exactly there. Not for nothing, after all, does Nina repeat her mysterious lines from the play during her final monologue, “Human beings, lions, eagles, quail…”

- Alexandre Marine

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Press Release:

November 4-21, 2004 at ArcLight Theatre

“The SEAGULL 2288” by Anton Chekhov

“The Seagull 2288” offers the New York audience a new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s most timeless classic - “The Seagull.”

This production is a completely modern play, outside of the contexts of time and place, the action of which develops within the framework of Shakespeare’s famous concept of “theater within theater,” or “a play within a play.”

The idea of the interdependence of art and reality evolves in a space designed to create interaction between the stage, set and actors and the audience. The characters of “The Seagull 2288” end up on Konstantin’s stage during critical, turning points in their lives or when they desire to get “closer to God.” The theatrical result is at once tragic and comic. Tragic because everything is happening to these characters for real, while comic because we see that it is all happening on the stage, which means that it is all artificial.

“The Seagull 2288” is adapted and staged by Alexandre Marine, a director whose name is often associated with the Moscow Art Theatre founded by K. Stanislavsky and Moscow Tabakov Theatre. Mr. Marine has created a number of magnificent productions in Russia, as well as in Japan, Europe and Canada ( Montreal), where he runs his own theatre.