By Robert St. Martin
Hollywood, CA (The Hollywood Times) 6/20/23 – This evening I was at the Asylum Theatre in Hollywood to see Josh Sobel’s innovative production of Anton Chekhov’s famous play The Seagull.
As part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, this experimental staging of The Seagull in a minimal performance space the width of a carpet runner between double sets of chairs was a fascinating, immersive experience of one of Chekhov’s great plays. Like Chekhov’s other full-length plays, The Seagull relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully-developed characters, as it dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between its four main characters. Clearly dominating the drama is the fading actress Irina Arkadina (played dramatic flourish by Donté Ashon Green) and her insecure and moody son, the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev (tackled by Avalon Greenberg Call). With most of the roles in Chekhov’s play, director Josh Sobel chose gender-fluid casting, with male actors playing major female roles and female actors taking on male character roles, including actors who identify as trans. The performance space is only as wide as a hallway rug and this brings the movement of the actors into extremely close intimacy with the audience.
In contrast to the melodrama of mainstream 19th-century theatre, lurid actions take place off stage and the majority of the drama is the verbal conflicts aired in the main rooms of a Russian country estate which is owned by a retired Russian senior civil servant in failing health, Pyotr Sorin (played with subtlety by Cal Walker). Josh Robel chose to use a recent English translation of Chekhov’s The Seagull done by British playwriter Anya Reiss for the 2012 Southwark production of the play – with its language updated for 21st century ears.
Irina Arkadina (Donté Ashon Green), his sister and a once-famous stage actress, arrives at the estate for a brief vacation. She is accompanied by her lover, the writer Boris Trigorin (Miguel Nuñez). Irina seems to always be in performance mode with her theatrical affections and insistence on her never-fading looks – the aspects of which male actor Donté Green captures with great aplomb.
The ailing Pyotr and his guests gather at an outdoor stage on his estate for an unconventional play that Irina’s son Konstantin Treplev has written and directed. Konstantin is openly ridiculed by Irina who feels that her son will never find his way in the world.
The play-within-a-play features a beautiful young woman named Nina (Adzua Ayana Asha Amao) who lives on a neighboring estate with her domineering father. The play proceeds with Nina’s pronouncement on this little stage that she is the “soul of the world” in abstract language favored by the Russian Symbolist playwrights of the 1890s. Konstantin aspires to be part of that new direction in Russian literature and the play represents his latest attempt at creating a new theatrical form. Irina and the others ridicule Konstantin’s play as incomprehensible gibberish so much that Konstantin storms off in humiliation. The physician Yevgeny Dorn (B.K. Dawson) seems to like the new theatrical effort of Konstantin’s play. On the other hand, the middle-brow writer Boris Trigorin immediately gets the hots for the aspiring young actress Nina, who will come to identify herself with the “seagull” in the play.
The various romantic triangles of the play are introduced from the beginning. Konstantin is in love with this young woman Nina who he casts in his new Symbolist play. However, a feisty young woman Masha (Anu Bratt) is in love with Konstantin. Meanwhile the local schoolteacher Semyon Medvedenko (Alejandra Jaime), with only a schoolteacher’s income is in love with Masha. We are introduced to Masha’s mother, the flirty Polina Andryevna (played in a campy style by Juan Ayala), who is married to the estate’s steward Ilya Shamrayev (played by Hope Simpson). Besides being the mother of head-strong Masha, she is busy having a love affair with the doctor, Yevgeny Dorn (B.K. Dawson). Yevgeny serves as the voice of stability in the play, reminding others that he is 55, although he has apparently always been a skirt-chaser.
In Act II, Arkadina, after reminiscing about happier times, engages in a heated argument with the house steward Shamrayev and decides to leave the estate by the lake. Nina lingers behind after the group leaves the room and Konstantin arrives to give her a seagull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified at the gift. Konstantin sees Trigorin approaching and leaves in a jealous fit, because he is in love with Nina and cannot stand Trigorin’s presence or his writing (which he says he has never read). The seagull which once symbolizes freedom and carefree security will come to represent destruction at the hands of a loved one. This key scene seems a bit rushed and there the staging in close quarters struggles to avoid levity.
Trigorin is infatuated with Nina and likewise Nina is curious about the fame of Trigorin as a writer. She asks Trigorin to tell her about the writer’s life. He replies that it is not an easy one. Nina says that she knows the life of an actress is not easy either, but she wants more than anything to be one. Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: “The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she’s happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull.” This is perhaps the heart of Chekhov’s reflection on playwriting and acting. The staging of this scene could have been stronger, but the two actors manipulate the hand-held lamps in the narrow performance space to illuminate their faces with dramatic intensity.
Arkadina marches into the room, calling for Trigorin, who is her lover and heavily influenced by her decisions. As he leaves the room, Arkadina tells him that she has changed her mind – they will not be leaving the estate by ferry across the lake that day. Nina lingers behind, enthralled with Trigorin’s celebrity and modesty, and gushes, “My dream!”
As Act III unfolds, we learn that Konstantin attempts to shoot himself in the head, but the bullet only grazes his skull – so he appeared heavily bandaged – mirroring in a symbolic way the dead seagull. Overnight Nina realized after her previous day’s conversation the writer Trigorin that she will go to London (or is Moscow) and become a stage actress. She presents him with a medallion that proclaims her devotion to him, using a line from one of Trigorin’s own books: “If you ever need my life, come and take it.” She retreats after begging for one last chance to see Trigorin before he leaves. Then the grand actress Arkadina dominates the remainder of the act, arguing with her brother Sorin, conjoling her bandaged son Konstantin, and flattering her recalcitrant lover Trigorin. Obviously, Nina is so taken with Trigorin that she decides to run away to become an actress against her parents’ wishes.
Act IV takes place several year later – and that passage of time is harder to explain on a limited stage: We are told that the old drawing room of the estate has been converted into Konstantin’s study. Konstantin has continued to write and has had some success with his work. Masha still is in love with Konstantin, although she ends up marrying the schoolteacher Medvedenko and they have a child together. We get filled in by the characters on what has happened in the intervening years: The aspiring actress Nina ends up living with the writer Trigorin in Moscow (or London). Nina has a baby from Trigorin, but the baby died shortly after his birth. Trigorin goes back to his former lover the boisterous Arkadina.
With Chekhov, the dominant theme is unrequited love matched with the false hopes of fame and fortune in life. Nina never achieved any real success as an actress, and she is currently on a tour of the provinces with a small theatre group. Nina tells Konstantin about her life over the last two years and compares herself to the seagull that Konstantin killed in Act II. She leaves immediately and Konstantin falls into despondent, tearing up his latest writing and actually eating the paper. Nina dominates Act IV and this is the strongest performance by Caladzua Ayana Asha Amao. Arkadina arrives to visit the estate because health of her brother Sorin is failing. We hear a sound like a gunshot and the physician Dorn rushes to check it out. Konstantin has finally shot himself. No one ends up happy in the end.
Josh Sobel has received much recognition as producer and director of film, theatre and multi-media entertainment. Has worked in Chicago theatre with the Steppenwold Theatre Company and been featured at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. After relocating to Los Angeles for graduate school at Cal Arts, he founded FutureHome Productions in 2021, where he is currently developing a slate of projects ranging from live experience to broadcast media. Many of the actors in this production of The Seagull are also from Cal Arts graduate programs in theatre. Donté Ashon Green stands out in the role of the aging actress Arkadina in this production. He was in a recent film about Rosa Parks and has had major roles in productions of Raisin in the Sun, Othello, The Duchess of Malfi, Uncle Vanya, and Rent.
Avalon Greenberg Call studied at Cal Arts and has worked in television and film. Adzua Ayana Asha Amao who plays the ingénue Nina is a Cal Arts M.F.A. Miguel Nuñez started his acting career in Venezeula and had a substantial career on stage in Chicago and been in many films. Juan Ayala is also from Venezuela with a B.F.A. in Acting from Cal Arts and performed in dance films and movement theatre. B.K Dawson is an award-winning stage actor including Shakespeare and musicals. Abu Bhatt is a SAG-AFTRA actor and dancer with degrees from U.C. Berkely and the Chicago College of Performing Arts. Alejandra Jaime has many television credits and also a Cal Arts graduate.
The Asylum Theatre is a tiny performance space, so seating has been quite limited. Director Josh Sobel has attempted to move the action of the play into the arms and legs of the audience as the we sit in such close proximity to the performers that we become immersed in their experiences. And so we listen more attentively to their words and observe their every gesture. There have already been five sold out performances of this Hollywood Fringe production of The Seagull and one remaining one next weekend. Josh Sobel hopes to encourage more immersive theatre of this sort in Los Angeles with his FutureHome Productions.