A Brief Production History of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov in the perspective of set design
For more than a century, Anton Chekhov's play "The Seagull" has been known for its incomparable richness and subtlety in discovering the ambiguity and complexity of human relationships, life, and art, and therefore has been repeatedly staged and adapted in various venues all over the world.
This essay takes set design as an entry point and explores how it works in coherence with the directorial concept through research on design sketches, production photos and videos, as well as interviews or writings from both insiders and outsiders of the productions. In comparing several productions over a century, from the 1898 Moscow Art Theater version to the 2022 National Theatre Livestream, the essay aims to uncover how different themes and interpretations of the play are highlighted through various artistic expressions embedded in a broader history of art and media.
Chekhov’s Spatial Conception
Considering reading the play as always the first step of set design, it may be helpful to start by looking into the stage directions given by Chekhov himself and those implied space overlaps between the lines. First, the objects and spatial elements mentioned on their own: From the lake, path, bushes, and stage in the first two acts to the cupboard, medicine cabinet, table, desk, suitcases coming later indoors, Chekhov has almost named every object he felt necessary for the scenes and some of their spatial arrangements while giving no visual description of any of them. This detailed and impressionistic style can be both a convenience and a disaster for designers—simply putting things together, filling in colors and embroideries based on the designer’s own aesthetics can easily make mediocre designs, or even an overcrowded disaster, while there must be strong reasons for removing one of them or adding something new, considering Chekhov’s resistance to literal realism in the rehearsal room of The Seagull, by referring to Kramskoy’s painting:
“The faces are portrayed superbly. What would happen if you cut the nose out of one of the paintings and substituted a real one? The nose would be ‘realistic’, but the picture would be ruined.”And summarized as, “the stage is art, the stage reflects the quintessence of life and there is no need to introduce anything superfluous on to it”[1]
Then the connections between them: assigning a color code for each act, we see some reappear in later acts, indicating the same one or spatial proximity. Especially the portal that connects two spaces: doors, windows, and terrace, which are commonly used as the implication of “the other world” on stage, also worth careful consideration in set design. Further connections include in lines, as these few examples show: at the end of act2, Arkadina’s appearance at the window calling Trigorin implies the layout of the lake, the lawn, and the house; in act4 when Medvedenko watched out from the French doors and asked to take down that hastily built stage for Konstantin’s first show two years ago, the physical space of act1 then folds into that of act4 through the French doors.
Mapping based on the text of The Seagull
Here is a rough mapping of the spaces in the play and a very literal projection from the text to the physical space of Sorin’s estate as if it did exist. I realize this can risk an over-simplification, yet later found how some of the designs may have started with the same method.
1898 Moscow Art Theater (MAT) production
Venue: Moscow Art Theater, Moscow
Director: Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko
Scenographer: Viktor Andreyevich Simov
The 1898 Moscow Art Theater production is the second performance of The Seagull after its premiere in 1896 at St Petersburg, which was a “general panic and total depression” for Chekhov as an emerging playwright. Regarding the failure of the premiere, while most scholars now claim that it was mostly the new, anti-melodramatic form of the play itself and its odds with audience expectation for an entertaining comedy, rather than artistic weaknesses that made it a flop, lack of enough preparation is still something to blame, as Chekhov complained in his letters, "I didn't do the casting. No new sets were made. There had been only two rehearsals and the actors kept forgetting their lines.[2]” That carelessness in direction and design following the stereotype failed to grasp the budding new idea, putting off the revolution for two more years.
Just as Treplev and Nina expecting for their “souls will flow together as they strive to present one and the same artistic image”[3] in their first play, Chekhov himself and MAT were also both at an early stage of their journey in theatre making and later proved to have both established their artistic achievement through the remarkable success of this production. However, the collaboration between the co-founder of MAT, also director of this production, Stanislavski and Chekhov went not smoothly at all. Despite the common vision of creating some new forms, one claimed that “the stage director of necessity became the only creator of the play”[4], while the other insisted that“ the author has the right to demand that his play is performed, and the parts played wholly according to his own interpretation” [5]. The main conflict laid in the director’s passion for ‘theatricality’ that Chekhov was specifically trying to avoid, whether in the performance such as the “hysterical interpretation of Nina” or including extra visual elements on stage.
Despite all these disagreements, Chekhov’s absence due to his poor health condition allowed the final production to be realized largely in accordance with Stanislavski’s artistic vision, which also expanded largely to the set design proved by the astonishingly detailed drawings made on his own. The sketches of the stage plan for act1 and 3 clearly shows Stanislavski’s treatment of the stage as a space with depth – thanks to the architect of the theatre venue, Fyodor Schechtel, who worked together with the theater’s art director and fully developed not only the building's facade, but also the layout and interior, therefore can this need be fulfilled. Further, seeing the “terrace” in act 2 and 4 occupies the upstage right in act1, and the living room in act 4 right next to the dining room in act3, we would be impressed by the ambition of Stanislavski for his ambition of creating not single scenes but a logically self-contained world where himself is the architect, landscape architect, gardener, interior designer, etc., whose control permeates into every tiny details.
Set plans of act 1 and 3 for The Seagull at MAT(1898) by Stanislavski, https://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mdenner/Drama/plays/Seagull/2seagull.html
Another key feature is the diagonal composition of the floor plan, intentionally avoiding facing the front, an obvious rebellion to the mainstream sets and the performance practices before MAT, to which Benedetti once provided a vivid description:
"Everyone, in fact, spoke their lines out front. Direct communication with the other actors was minimal. Furniture was so arranged as to allow the actors to face front. [6]
Both the stereotyped, isolated set pieces of “wings, back-drops taken from stock, doors conventionally placed” and the way that they all “face the front” called for reforming, while what Stanislavski pursued was an intentional creation of an entire “system” with all the space interconnected logically. However, his vision seemed not fully realized in the rendering by the designer Simov or in the production photo. In spite that the elements did follow Stanislavski’s imagination and fit the scene beautifully, the diagonal layout lost some sharpness (e.g. the stage and the bench seems parallel to each other?) or at least hardly recognizable in this flat, picturesque image. The white architecture piece on the left, where should have locate the Sorin’s house, appears more like a decorative Greek temple. In all, instead of reflecting the spatial depth and interconnections between acts which made a larger part in Stanislavski’s concept, Simov did a better job in capturing the poetic atmosphere and creating a dream-like impression.
Surprisingly, the biggest dissatisfaction of the design focused not on the former but still the latter in both Simov’s own reflection as “the scenery of the first act never satisfied me… I still have not grasped the extraordinary subtlety and lightness[7] and a comment from Chekhov as “wet”. However, does a more satisfying version really make a huge difference? with a warmer color palette, or fancier brushstrokes? Perhaps, in a time when leading artists fought so hard against the stereotypes of theatre of the previous age, that rebellion could easier resort to style, or tone, which somehow blocked the need of deeper exploration of the space itself, which did sprout in Stanislavski’s design, but was then hastily overlooked unconsciously.
Render of act1 by Simov
Production photo of act1
A Palimpsest over time: 1994 National Theatre production
Venue: The Oliver Theatre, National Theatre, London
Director: John Caird
Set designer: John Gunter
The 1994 production in National Theatre interpreted the play as a “palimpsest”, a brilliant concept that fits into Chekhov’s creation of “life as it is” so well, a living organism where drama gives way to trivia and emotion that slowly accumulate over time. Specifically in set design, John Gunter’s set starts from the simple makeshift stage on which Treplev’s experimental drama is to be performed in the beginning, with a new layer added at the downstage side by each act, making the set gradually cluttered with small objects, switching from outdoors to indoors. This “palimpsest,” echoes to the metaphor in adaptation, and also evokes reflections of a life journey on a longer time scale.
Production photos of The Seagull at National Theatre(1994) ©photostage.co.uk,
https://www.photostage.co.uk/drama/chekhov-anton/the-seagull-nt-1994-2006.html
However, this fascinating idea encountered some technical issue on the opening night when a large frame got stucked in mid-flight from the stage and was therefore criticized as “a classic case of a fine production paying the price for visual over-elaboration”[8].
Costly as though, I still do not agree that it is a meaningless "over-elaboration", but rather an innovative exploration of the stage: it does not try to accurately represent a real space from the floor plan like Stanislavski 's design, but allows the space in the text to fold again and again on the limited stage, introducing new things while pushing the memories from the past to a distance, instead of erasing them. These gradual “accumulations” instead of dramatic “transitions” between the scenes makes a compellingly interpretation and poetic visual gesture of Chekhov’s view of life and play as it is.
A Lens to art:
2011 Satirikon Arkady Raikin Russian State Theatre Production
Venue: Satirikon Arkady Raikin Russian State Theatre Production, Moscow
Director: Yury Butusov
Set Designer: Alexander Shishkin
This bold and hilarious adaptation broke down almost everything one can think of in theatre: texts, characters, space, rhythm for serving a retrospective core: theatre itself as an art making process, which is one of the themes that Chekhov explored in the original play but really established as the key essence in this production.
The set, neither resorting to an historically accurate 19-century Russian household or a symbolic landscape, was built and kept envolving through the four acts as a contemporary-looked art studio, messed up with canvas on frames, paints, brush, scribbles, hanging ropes and later a long table with fruits and flowers as if borrowed from a 17-century Netherland still-life painting. Painting, as the most widely perceived artistic medium, becomes the visual symbol in this play.
Meanwhile, the unfinished drawing on the backdrop is an interactive piece, it was tore done first as a claim of the failure of Treplev’s show in act1 and then as the French doors where Nina comes in in act4; expands itself and becomes a shadow screen in act3.
The iconic doubling, or better described as switching roles from time to time, destroy any normal human relationships: mother and son, friends, lovers, etc., leaving only the competition, jealousy, and desire intact. After all, it does not matter who is who for Arkadina, Treplev, Trigorin and Nina, the only truth is that they all struggle in the art world.
Even minor changes in the script also echoes this choice of highlighting art. Instead of having Masha, a less relevant character explaining her unhappiness, the opening line in this version is the protagonist, Treplev’s arrogant monologue about his idealistic new forms in the theatre: “A curtain, two wings, right and left, and then nothing. No set. Empty space!” At the end of act2, Trigorin repeated several times his conceiving plot of a young girl like a seagull being destroyed, and kissed Nina, which is a big alteration from the original plot but implies that Trigorin has a love affair with Nina not because of her admiration but taking her as his heroine and artistic Muse. At the beginning of act3, Masha again gives way to Nina asking “odd or even” to see if she should be an actress---another key moment discussing art.
Production photos of The Seagull at Satirikon Theatre (2011) ©stage Russia, https://thetheatretimes.com/russian-theatre-screen-yury-butusovs-seagull/
Another noteworthy fact about this production is its strong awareness of the asynchronous audience and active catering for their needs that integrated into the direction and design. Six cameras worked collaboratively creating a panoramic view of the performance, accompanied by proficient editing, a refined product was made, which served countless screening and webcasting over the past ten years. Today, we can still easily access the full-length video online at 4.99 dollar.
Inhabitation the Nature? 2015 Open Air Theatre Production
Venue: Open Air Theatre at the Regent's Park, London
Director: Matthew Dunster
Set designer: Jon Bausor
In this production, the outdoor, ancient Greek-liked venue became the first and most significant factor for design. Everything, the bushes, the moon, the stage, seems to be already there for act1(or for Treplev’s play), with an artificial lake added later. Inhabiting and being embraced by nature also became one of the main attractions for audience then.
Production photos of The Seagull at Open Air Theatre (2015), photo by Johan Persson.
https://thetheatretimes.com/russian-theatre-screen-yury-butusovs-seagull/
A visible advantage for including this mirror is to provide an estranged perspective of observation that audience rarely have in the theatre, the top view. People are flattened into spots on a surface, losing most details in their dress, gesture and expression but as a compensation, their movements and stop in the space, and the intentionality behind are exponentially amplified.
The device created
“memorable, almost cinematic images: Nina sprawled out on the grass and dreaming; a servant slowly flicking a feather duster across its surface; characters standing at angles to each other, unlistening.”[9]
However, I would rather call this design a disproportionate sacrifice of space for the sake of creating astonishing images - from a well-cropped photo, the standing Arkadina staring at her own image in the grand mirror, where the concrete and the abstract, the real and the unreal meet, conveying such a sense of solidarity that is indeed heartbreaking. However, in the view of the whole stage, this huge, angular, surreal mirror then seems abrupt and awkward in an outdoor environment of natural beauty. The using of mirror reflection also seems a little too straightforward and can be easily and better transplanted to another play that features more visual spectacles instead of emotional subtlety.
Such over-obsession to image, or cinematography also finds its counterpart in direction, as it is mentioned in a review that“Cinematic conceits such as voice-overs muddy the theatrical waters slightly”. All these visual and aural elements made this production, which was put on in open air, and therefore could have the most chance to present the existing nature, ended up in least naturalistic style.
Another very latest production is the National Theatre Live version in 2022, presented in the Harold Pinter Theatre but largely created for live stream amplifies this tendency even more. The set appears to be an extremely simple and plain wood-chip box with only the “fourth wall” facing the camera. One unprecedented problem caused by this set is how actors enter or exit the stage: no more “stage left” or “right”; the only way to escape is by breaking the invisible wall and jumping into the audience. At the end of act 3, when everybody waves goodbye and leaves one by one, the diverse awkwardness makes itself a remarkable ritual while bringing some laughter. An essential gesture made by the set is the taking down of the back wall between the act3 and 4, indicating the conversion of the room and the two years interval in the play as well as a radical deconstruction of theatre itself. I feel that this can be a design decision made by not Chekhov but Konstantin himself, the young artist in the play seeking new forms, “No set. Empty space!”
Production photo of The Seagull at Harold Pinter Theatre (2022), photo by Marc Brenner.
https://theseagull.ntlive.com/gallery/
Throughout the several productions I mentioned above, from the 1898 MAT production to the 2022 NT Live production, the interest in a naturalistic representation of the space in Chekhov’s text gradually fades out, giving place to increasing art experimentation of bringing into life and crystalizing the protagonists’ exploration of new art forms in the productions, through various directorial conceptions, visual appearances, and techniques. This focus on creating new art forms certainly reflects the self-consciousness and autonomy in theatre on the one hand, but is it also a compromise to the never-stopped emerging and irreversible flood of new mediums and spectatorship? After all, we can talk about art anywhere, anytime, in any form. In the increasing dichotomy of theatre, Stanislavski’s dream of creating a self-contained world on stage may find its way towards one end of the immersive theatre, while the other end inevitably follows the age of the screen.
Bibliography
Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski: An Introduction. London: Methuen, 1982.
Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov. Canberra, A.C.T.: ANU E Press, 2006.
Braun, Edward, ed. Meyerhold on Theatre. 3. print. London: Eyre Methuen [u.a.], 1977.
Forest, Petrified. “The Seagull – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre – Review,” 2015.
Taylor, Paul. “Every Picture Tells a Story: Paul Taylor on The Seagull, Directed by John Caird, at the National,” n.d. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-every-picture-tells-a-story-paul-taylor-on-the-seagull-directed-by-john-caird-at-the-national-1412697.html.
Viktor Simov: Stanislavsky’s Designer. Stanislavsky Studies Video Essays, n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzcPXCXdmqc.
N.d.
[1] Braun, Meyerhold on Theatre, 30. [2] Chekhov, A., Letter to E. Shavrova, 1 November 1896, in Hellman, L., op. cit., pp. 195–6. [3] Anton Chekhov, “The Seagull,” trans. Translator Ryan McKittrick& Julia Smeliansky, 2016: 4 [4] Borny, Interpreting Chekhov, 133. [5] Borny, 127. [6] Benedetti, Stanislavski, 6. [7] Paul Fryer, Viktor Simov: Stanislavsky’s Designer. [8] Taylor, “Every Picture Tells a Story: Paul Taylor on The Seagull, Directed by John Caird, at the National.” [9] Forest, “The Seagull – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre – Review.”
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