The Seagull
by Anton Chekhov

Directed and Designed
by Lon Winston

THE SEAGULL Expertly Depicts Chekhovian Mood

By Judy King - Valley Journal staff writer

When at the beginning of The Seagull, the depressive Masha says that she always wears black "Because I'm in mourning for my life," the audience is transported into Chekhov's interior landscape of characters unique in their own unhappiness, as Tolstoy would have it.

Anton Chekhov was a master at crafting a comic touch to the interplay between restless, self-obsessed personalities. Set in the Russian countryside as the 19th Century slipped into the 20th while aristocratic bohemians wrestled with ennui and desperate feelings of uselessness, "The Seagull" demands directorial energy and nuance. Fortunately for this production, its director/set designer, Lon Winston, abundantly possesses both traits.

Working with his own Thunder River Theatre Company and the Colorado Mountain College Theatre in the first dual-troupe production in the Jim Calaway Honors Series, Winston elicits performances sufficiently sharply etched and humor-studded to avoid the pathos trap.

This is a seasoned cast well suited to the demands of depicting an odd assortment of characters who bring their inconvenient ardor to the country estate of the family of an accomplished, aging actress, Irina Arkadina. Valerie Haugen is flawlessly contemptible as a distasteful woman who proves that talent and a flamboyant lifestyle are not defenses against being mean-spirited, manipulative and miserly.

As Arkadina's wistful brother, Pyotr Sorin, an ailing member of the landed gentry, Tom Cochran gives a moving portrayal of a well-meaning man tormented by unrealized aspirations.

A contemporary of Sorin's, Dr. Dorn, is played with verve by Richard Lyon, masterfully conveying a hearty and self-satisfied rogue who has taken what he wanted from life - in striking contrast to the morally scrupulous and ineffectual Sorin - and is thus positioned to be unself-consciously receptive to the new.

Chekhov orchestrates chess-like movements of characters checkmated by unrequited love in a design of futile and obsessive passions. Arkadina's son, Konstantin - played with expansive components of aspiration and frustration by Ryan Fleming - adores the sheltered Nina. Lauren Urquhart's Nina is appropriately fluttery and intense as she flings herself at Arkadina's lover, the successful, self-serving novelist Boris Trigorin, played by Jeff Carslon in a cleverly low-keyed tone.

Another young woman loved by one man but lusting for another is black-clad Masha who spurns the affections of a self-pitying schoolteacher, Semyon Medvedenko - played by Jack Morgan with a careful blend of the comic and the compassionate - because of a relentless passion for the Nina-obsessed Konstantin. Rachel Mulry's Masha is a skillful depiction of depression and obsession a century before Prozac lightened the load. Handled with less savvy, the role could be maudlin Mulry makes Masha both decidedly humorous and gently sympathetic.

Another performance equally evoking audience laughter and empathy is Bonnie Cobb's Polina, Masha'a bustling, unhappy mother. Polina is as enamored of a practiced lover as she is aggravated by her husband, Shamrayev - the sullen, opinionated estate manager whose abrupt arguments and absurd enthusiasms are perfectly captured by Michael Miller, who turns a small part into a memorable performance.

Winston's set design superbly conveys the fleeting beauty of a Russian summer by a pristine lake and intriguingly places empty frames in front of this background. Winston perceives "The Seagull" as a play about artists - actual and aspiring - in a world where older art forms were giving way to the new. The seeds of Modernism seethe in a rising talent like Konstantin whose punishment for challenging the older generation is his mother's derision of his art and her smug lover's amorous antics.

Every element of the production - lighting, costumes, background music - creates the tone of a twilight era when cataclysmic upheavals - social and political as well as artistic - are waiting in the wings as stage lights fade with a slow and exquisite poignancy, and the curtain falls on characters caught between fading and rising epochs.

"The Seagull will be playing Oct. 26-28 in the New Space Theatre at the CMC Spring Valley campus. Show times are 730 p.m. There will be two performances on Saturday, one a matinee at 130 p.m. Ticket prices vary. For more information and for tickets, call the CMC Theatre at 947-8252.

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