Anton Chekov’s The Seagull is a piece of theatre about theatre; its cast of actresses and playwrights reference Shakespeare and put on plays within the play. It is about the performances we all put on in our daily lives, whether those lives are nineteenth-century Russia or twenty-first-century Scotland. James Brining’s production of this classical, canonical work is solid, but in the context of such inherent theatricality, it feels like a missed opportunity to do something more ambitious to mark his first season as the Lyceum’s artistic director.
None of The Seagull’s characters get what they want. Youthful Nina wants to achieve fame on the stage while aging actress Irina yearns for her youth, and Irina’s son Constantin can’t decide if he wants to be a playwright, an acclaimed author or Nina’s lover, failing in each endeavour. It is a play about addiction, with every one of its complicated, messy, deeply human characters trapped by a compulsion for something.
The sense of being caught in a trap is heighted by Colin Richmond’s clever and elegant set. It starts with expanses of reeds, hints of a spreading lake stretching into the distance and grand ruins that would not look out of place in a Renaissance painting of a nativity scene, dwarfing the tiny human dramas taking place below.
Gradually, act by act, it constricts (Richmond compares it to a set of Russian dolls), the atmosphere becoming increasingly claustrophobic until the cast is crammed onto a tiny platform in the centre of the stage. The tragic end feels all the more inevitable for characters who physically have no room to breathe.
As a play in which nobody’s life ever seems to really start, in which the comedy is constantly undercut by pathos, it is Caroline Quentin as Irina and Harmony Rose-Bremner as Nina who really deliver this production’s heart.
Quentin is fabulous as the fading actress Irina still trying to kid herself and her audience that she could be Ophelia or Juliet. Her mood swings unsteadily from majestic grand dame to brittle, middle-aged woman striving to keep hold of her lover. There are shades of Alison Steadman’s Mrs Bennett in the desperate pitch of her performance.
Reflecting Irina is Nina, an ingénue desperate to make it as an actress. Rose-Bremner is a revelation, bursting with life at the start of the play before falling under the sway of the more worldly Trigorin (who is also Irina’s lover), Nina’s every fleeting emotion clear on her face. Rose-Bremner’s scene with Dyfan Dwyfor’s Trigorin which closes the first half is gripping, the chemistry palpable. By the end of the play she is wild-eyed and manic, and the audience is hanging on her every word.
Not all of the performances are so strong, and there are moments when some actors seem to lack confidence in their delivery or the truth of what they are saying. In a production that is delivered so straight and so classically, even the odd stumble stands out starkly, like a wrinkle in a beautifully simple dress.
The Seagull is, as director Brining points out in his programme notes, ‘one of theatre’s great classics’; it feels intended to be a safe bet with which to begin his tenure. In practice, the execution is just that: a solid production that efficiently delivers a classic bit of theatre, but no more.
Performed at The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Runs until Saturday 1 November, Tuesday-Saturday 19:30, Wednesdays and Saturdays 14:30
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval
Written by Anton Chekhov
Adapted by Mike Poulton
Directed by James Brining
Set Designer: Colin Richmond
Costume Designer: Madeleine Boyd
Composer & Sound Designer: Michael John McCarthy
Lighting Designer: Lizzie Powell
Cast: Irene Allan. John Bett, Dyfan Dwyfor, Michael Dylan, Tallulah Greive, Kristian Lustre, Lorn MacDonald, Forbes Masson, Steven McNicoll, Caroline Quentin, Harmony Rose-Bremner