This sumptuous production was engaging throughout. It featured a genuine lake and evoked well the sense of ennui in the country estate. The production also brought to life the characters and their issues and tensions. The lead character, Arkadina played by Anna Chancellor, is an aging actress more city- than country-focussed who sweeps back to her country estate for a visit. Her son, Konstantin, puts on a production of his 'modern' play for her, only to be met by a complete lack of concentration and attempted (successfully) upstaging by his mother. This propels him into torment, which is only exacerbated when his actress, Nina, goes off with Trigorin, the lover of Arkadina and a second-rate writer with delusions of greatness.
It is around this point that Konstantin presents Nina with a dead seagull whose destruction serves as a metaphor for the potential destruction of Nina. This indeed comes to pass as she changes from an innocent girl over-protected by her father, to the mother of Trigorin's child. We pick up her story in the fourth act where she has returned to the countryside but still professes love for Trigorin, seeing her life as indeed like the seagull's. Poor Konstantin sees his love for Nina will never be requited and shoots himself which is where the play ends.
Running alongside this central story we have the character of Medvedenko a poor and money-obsessed schoolteacher who is in love with Masha, the daughter of the estate manager, Shamrayev. She would rather have Konstantin. However she goes on to marry the schoolteacher and in the fourth act we find that they have a baby and are to move away shortly. The other major characters are Sorin, Arkadina's brother and a constant presence on the estate as well as Evkeny Dorn, a doctor friend of his who is having a rather half-hearted affair with Polina.
It can be seen that the play is complicated but not too complicated. It is also clever in its structure with the fourth act allowing us to see how things unfold. It comments on various matters including romantic relationships, town versus country and the delusions people harbour. It also, of course, references the theatre and acting.
The NT production was the third of a trilogy, made up also of Platonov and Ivanov. Those who did so reported that seeing all three on one day was a thoroughly worthwhile experience enabling to see amongst other things the evolution of the Young Chekhov's writing between the plays.
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