The Seagull

Overview

The main characters, all artists, are guests at a country estate. They are Mme Arkadina, a middle-aged actress; her lover, Trigorin, a successful writer; her son Konstantin, a writer; and Nina, a young aspiring actress whom Konstantin loves. Mme Arkadina, jealous of Nina’s youth and promising career, acts cruelly and hatefully toward Konstantin, belittling his new play and withholding the approval he desperately seeks from her. Nina, impressed by Trigorin’s fame, ignores Konstantin, who kills a seagull and shows it to her, perhaps symbolically referring to his broken dreams. All four go their separate ways, but two years later they are reunited at the same estate. When Nina again rejects Konstantin, he destroys his writings and shoots himself while his mother, unaware, plays cards in another room.

Casting & Production

Authors

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 29th in the year 1860, in the small seaport of Taganrog, Ukraine. He is regarded as one of Russia’s most cherished story tellers.... read more

Paul Schmidt

Actor, librettist, poet, translator, professor, and Russian scholar Paul Schmidt’s translation of Chekhov’s work have been praised as “the gold standard in Russian-English translation.” Throughout his career, Schmidt worked in... read more

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