The Seagull

Herein lies the most important and original characteristic of his creation.

Anticipating a little, I would here point to his comedy, The Seagull, where, in defiance of all literary principles, the basis of the action appears not to be the logical development of passions or the inevitable connection between cause and effect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude.

As one reads the play, it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with an endless series of news paragraphs heaped upon one another without order and without previous plan.

Sovereign accident reigns everywhere and in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all conceptions.

Of this and this alone must a man tell.

Not of our invention is normal life, nor abnormal.

Why then should the first one be considered as the real reality? The Seagull must be considered one of the most characteristic and therefore one of the most remarkable of Chekhov's works.

Therein, the artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.

I have not seen other Chekhov plays.

Have you seen other Chekhov plays? I know he did The Seagull.

I know he did Uncle Vanya.

Yeah.

think i read any

chukov yeah in high school

I saw the seagull when I was 10.

Okay.

And the story of Thomas is kind of about trying to live up to the expectations of his father and being able to write something to impress Leah to some extent.

And it has a lot of echoes to, I think you're about to say it, The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.

Yeah, I was going to say The Seagull, yeah.

As we were playing through it, I was like, Christ, the comparisons between Thomas and the character in The Seagull called Konstantin Treplev as well as in The Seagull... constantine is very envious and very jealous of his mother's career and is always looking for her approval because she's a famous actress whereas in treading his call it's his father and he is very much in love with an actress someone who lives nearby called nina who in this game is leah and i've not seen any other conversations around that but like immediately and it's very kind of you know linked with what you and me have done in a past life with our you know drama school and acting etc and Chekhov is very hit and miss there are some Chekhov plays that I love and The Seagull was probably one of my favourite plays Some of them not so much like Three Sisters or Uncle Vanya.

But yeah, I really appreciated that that was in there because, like I say, The Seagull is one of my favourite plays and I've been in versions of it and I've been in adaptations of The Seagull.

and the fact that i've seen something similar to the story of the seagull in some way in a game i just really appreciated there's someone who appreciates yeah and someone that has that background

i think there's a i think there's probably a lot of i think that that particular chapter is probably quite influenced by check off because uh you and i also acted in cherry orchard uh And I really like The Cherry Orchard.

I didn't really appreciate it at the time.

Yeah.

What was your experience like with Uncle Vanya? While you guys were doing that down the street here, we were doing The Seagull upstairs.

And I was Shamarev.

This is a Brooklyn group that came over here called Adult Film doing it upstairs here.

I'm excited about all of the productions.

Yura Kordonsky, who's on our faculty, is doing a new adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull.

Yep.

And the Binger Center also commissioned a wonderful new play, Quisqueya on the Hudson, by Guadalupe del Carmen, and directed by Canute Adams, that tells the story of a family in 1961. on San Juan Hill as they are redeveloping that neighborhood to make Lincoln Center and the impacts on this family.

I'd love to know when you knew you had to be an artist.

I think about that beautiful moment that I read about that you camped out, you know, at the Delacorte wanting to see that incredible production of The Seagull.

Oh, my goodness.

Yes.

And you I still count myself lucky to have seen it for so many different reasons.

But, yeah, I was I had just finished my senior year of high school.

in the city, and I was about to go to college in Baltimore, and so it was my last sort of summer in the city, and my girlfriend at the time was very connected to theater in a way that I kind of wasn't, sort of in a grassroots kind of way, and she said, I have to see this production of the Seagull.

We have to see it.

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