I could tell you any number of reasons why you
should see the latest screen adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Let’s dispense with the high-minded cultural one:
i.e., that it’s good for you. That kind of argument, resting on the notion that
it’s not every day that a classic gets translated to the screen, will be scant
comfort to anyone forced to sit through a production that drags along.
I’m afraid that this dramedy—the first in which the
Russian doctor-turned-short-story writer hit his stride as a master of the
stage in the 1890s—has attracted nowhere near the notice it deserves, after its
premiere a month ago at the Tribeca Film Festival. More’s the pity, because Michael Mayer has directed a rarity—a
Chekhovian showcase of the actor’s art that also functions as a fine piece of
cinema, as it is buoyed by:
*an all-star group of actors, virtually all
perfectly cast;
*lovely location shooting;
*concise scenes that do not linger a second longer
than necessary; and
* a fluid but not hyperkinetic camera.
Let’s start with the setting. This does not appear
to be a particularly high-budget film (after all, there are no whiz-bang
special effects).
But by filming in 21 days in 2015, replacing
Chekhov’s dacha with a mansion in upstate Monroe, NY, Mayer has found an
excellent cinematic (and relatively inexpensive American) counterpart to what
is evoked onstage. It allows for a greater sense of realism, and the window
vistas allow characters to eavesdrop on a lake boating session with heavy romantic
overtones. It brings near-perfect understanding of what this play’s stand-in for Chekhov, Dr. Dorn, means by “the spells cast by this lake.”
(Not perfect, but near-perfect. If there is a problem with the cinematography, in
fact, it might be that it is too
good. It gives an idea of the sylvan lakeside setting, for instance, but not of
the crushingly boring country life that make the women especially so tetchy and
anxious for a different, more fulfilling life, preferably in Moscow.)
All that beauty could make for a monotonous couple
of hours at the movie, except that the pace of scenes is economical. In this
romantic roundelay of disappointment and mismatched lovers, characters constantly
pursue a love that is not returned, and in turn are shadowed by others whose
love they cannot accept.
So, for instance, aspiring playwright Konstantine
yells “Go away” at the estate manager’s daughter Masha, who also immediately
screams the same thing at her unfortunate
swain, the schoolteacher Mikhail Medvedenko. The pattern is repeated, in a mad, fruitless,
endless circular dance all through the rooms and woods surrounding this dacha that, in the not-so-distant future, will have far graver matters
confronting it.
What also struck me, in a week featuring the
high-profile suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, were Chekhov’s
insights into how anyone with money could be despondent. Happiness does not
depend on money, Masha says; sometimes even poor men can find it.
Unfortunately, happiness is in short supply among
those who gather for the summer at the estate of Sorin, including those
in the seemingly glamorous orbit of his sister, the famous actress Irina
Arkadina.
Mayer is aided by a fine cast, particularly the trio
of leading actresses: Saoirse Ronan
(as Konstantine’s muse and aspiring actress Nina), Elisabeth Moss (pictured here) as Masha, and Annette Bening as the monstrously narcissistic but pathetic Irina Arkadina.
Bening’s role here is similar to her Oscar-nominated
performance in Being Julia (2005) and
her equally acclaimed one as Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2018). In all three, she plays
narcissistic actresses, high-strung and romantically entangled, who are driven
to the edge by their fear of aging. Seldom has such anxiety been conveyed so
starkly and fearlessly onscreen.
Watch the crows’ feet on her face as, from a high
window, she glimpses a possible usurper of her place in the Russian theater and
in the bed of her lover, the facile writer Boris Trigorin. Listen to her voice
shift from cold anger to desperation as she confronts Trigorin about his
infidelity.
Not for nothing does good, kind Dr. Dorn (played by
an affecting Jon Tenney) tell her when asked that she looks younger than Masha.
The middle-aged actress needs reassurance far more desperately than the
depressed, lovelorn younger woman.
In Masha, Moss molds a character whose sharply
angular features mirror her sharp intelligence and sharp wit. The effect is of
a 21st-century cable TV female comic—wisecracking,
substance-abusing—plumped down in the wrong century and country and all too
aware of it. By the end, Masha’s all-black clothing and her explanation for
it—“I’m in mourning for my life”—are not mere melodramatic affectations but
perfectly comprehensible. Contemptuous of anyone’s pity, Masha still receives
the audience’s because of Moss’ portrayal.
As Nina, Ronan adds a different dimension to a role usually
seen as an innocent ingénue seduced and abandoned by Trigorin. Star-struck Nina
may be taken advantage of by the worldly writer, but she pursues him as avidly as she does a life
on the stage. Her tragedy is not that she was beaten by fate but that she badly
overestimated her ability to master it.
As Trigorin, Corey Stoll (who played the doomed congressman in Season 1 of House of Cards) is a perfect foil for
Bening and Ronan. His personality, like his creative output, offers a bland,
amiable surface that make it easy for him to attract women, but without
offering anything deeper. He admits that there’s justification for
Konstantine’s characterization of him as facile, but can he help it if readers
snatch up his books, any more than women continue to fall for him?
Brian Dennehy brings a bonhomie
to Sorin that is shot through with the same kind of disappointment that the
other characters experience. He values his encounters with Dorn and his nephew
Konstantine as a kind of consolation prize for the twin disappointments of his
life: his inability to marry or to become a published writer.
In the Rockland County, NY, multiplex where I saw
the film, only two other people were in the theater for that particular
performance. Obviously, this did not make for an ideal audience.
Still, I’m not sure that more fans would have necessarily
fostered an appreciation for the script by Stephen Karam. Hardly an unheralded playwright,
as evidenced by The Humans, Karam is
still not an ideal translator or adapter of Chekhov.
Though his work here is still an improvement on his adaptation
of Chekhov’s final masterpiece, The
Cherry Orchard, mounted by the Roundabout Theatre Co. a few years ago (see
my review from the time here), Karam
still leaves Chekhov’s humor—ironic, rueful—deeply submerged. Konstantine’s
contempt for Trigorin’s shallowness, for instance, comes across as merely
envious rather than bitterly accurate if over-the-top in the lengths to which
it is taken (a duel challenge).
(For a better sense of how this could be done, the
gold standard is still the production mounted on Broadway a decade ago starring
Kristin Scott Thomas, directed by Ian Rickson and adapted by Christopher
Hampton.)
For my money, the best all-around version of The Seagull is still the 1975 one televised as part of PBS’s “Great Performances” series starring Lee Grant, Frank
Langella, Blythe Danner, Kevin McCarthy, and Olympia Dukakis. But Mayer’s works
perfectly fine in its own right, taking full advantage of its location setting
and its marvelous cast. If you cannot see it in movie theaters, I urge you to
catch it streaming or on DVD.
New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42st Street
was built during the second term of Mayor Bill O’Dwyer—which, for anyone
keeping score, ended (hastily) in 1950. Commuters like me are familiar with how
much it is showing its age, most notably during the winter, when buckets all
over the place try to keep the leaks from the roof.
