THE SEAGULL

By ANTON CHEKHOV
Adapted by ANYA REISS | North American Premiere
Directed by ERIC TUCKER

Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker Street, NYC, in repertory with Sense & Sensibility. Performances began October 30, 2014; The Seagull officially opened November 2 and the engagement ran through December 22

THE STORY.

Konstantin wants to create a new kind of theater. Nina wants to become an actress. Arkadina has already become one—and cannot imagine surrendering the attention that comes with it. Trigorin has the success Konstantin desperately wants and the life Nina believes she wants.

They gather on a country estate and begin, almost casually, to alter one another’s lives.

Chekhov’s The Seagull is filled with people reaching toward something just beyond their grasp: artistic greatness, recognition, youth, freedom, love. Their desires overlap but rarely meet. Konstantin loves Nina. Nina is drawn to Trigorin. Masha loves Konstantin. Arkadina clings fiercely to both her son and the man who may destroy him.

Years pass. Ambitions are tested. People leave and return. Some dreams survive their encounter with the world; others do not.

In Anya Reiss’s contemporary adaptation, Bedlam brings the audience startlingly close to Chekhov’s people and to the uneasy boundary between performance and life. What begins as a comedy about artists, families, vanity, and impossible love gradually becomes something more unsettling: a portrait of the distance between the lives we imagine for ourselves and the lives we actually manage to live.

Everyone here wants to be seen.

The tragedy is how rarely they truly see one another.

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THE WORD.

“BEST CLASSICAL PRODUCTION OF 2014.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Director of the Year 2014: Eric Tucker

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Acted with exquisite sensitivity.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“A remarkable bit of stage alchemy.”

THE NEW YORKER

“The piece achieves a formidable emotional

intensity.”

THE NEW YORKER

“A riveting, emotionally charged

production… will send you soaring.”

THEATREMANIA

PEOPLE.

  • Laura Baranik | Nina

  • Vaishnavi Sharma | Irina Arkadina

  • Eric Tucker | Konstantin

  • Jason O'Connell | Trigorin

  • Samantha Steinmetz | Medvedenko

  • Nigel Gore | Dorn

  • Andrus Nichols | Masha

  • John Russell | Shamrayev

  • Stephan Wolfert | Sorin

  • Kate Hamill | Polina

Director — Eric Tucker
Set Design — John McDermott
Lighting Design — Les Dickert
Costume Design — Angela Huff
Production Stage Manager — Katharine Whitney

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