The seagull

New season! July 13 to August 5 at the Chilean National Theater. More info HERE

“Lots of talk about literature, a little action, tons of love.” The phrase is from a letter from 1895 in which Anton Chekhov described the work he was creating. The text was The Seagull, which today is considered the first pillar of his fame as one of the greatest playwrights in history. A career that he was on the verge of abandoning if he had remained discouraged after the premiere was a total failure. Because in an autumnal Saint Petersburg in 1896, the debut of The Seagull was booed until the protagonist lost her voice and Chekhov hid behind the scenes. But two years later, Konstantín Stanislavski re-staged the play and changed the story. The director had understood that if little happens in the play in conventional terms it is because the action is shaking the souls of the characters.

The Seagull is an exploration of the tragedy of the banality of life portrayed in a group of artists linked by kinship and passions, in conflict over egos and frustrations, subjected to their tedium and emptiness. The play now comes to GAM in an adaptation by Francisco Albornoz, who also brings it to the stage. "What matters most to us is to bring to the present stage the themes, the contents and the dimension of human life that Chekhov knew how to capture in his time. But we have no intention of building a museum piece, that seems to us to be a meaningless effort," says the director.

This version plays aesthetically between Chekhov's Russia and today's Chile and focuses on the central characters to "fully enter the power of a work that asks about the meaning of desire, fear and passion in times of social change," explains Albornoz. The work shows Irina Arkádina, an actress who sees her glory years slipping away, her brother, her writer lover, her son who also writes, an aspiring actress who is her daughter-in-law, her neighbor and the professor who is in love with her.

Dramaturgy Antón Chekhov
Direction and adaptation Francisco Albornoz
Performers Ximena Rivas, Francisco Reyes, Montserrat Ballarín, Álvaro Morales, Mario Avillo, María Jesús Marcone, Camilo Navarro
Music Angelo Solari
Lighting design Andrés Poirot
Set and costume design Catalina Devia
Graphic Javier Pañella
Production Stephanie Preller