During literature class last month, Mr. Windwoodfren introduced us to Chekhov and his famous play The Seagull. Mr. Windwoodfren managed to convince every other teacher in our year to adjust their classes and changed all of our school schedules to be able to suffer continuously for 4 hours. By this I mean we watched Yuriy Butusov’s production of The Seagull in Russian with only a break of 15min. by the clock in the middle. I know you might be asking yourselves why I would be writing about this on my spare time, and believe me I am questioning my sanity as well, but it is something I have to do, if only for the purpose of you (Whomever you are) not having to sit through the hell I and my classmates went through.
To understand this particular version better, I do recommend to read (Lets be real listen to the audiobook here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEMoSzDi_cg&frags=pl%2Cwn) the play first. This will help you comprehend the ridiculous narcissistic characters of Chekhov’s “masterpiece”. Butusov’s interpretation of this dark comedy is pretty interesting to be fair, and that’s why I still don’t know if I completely loved it or, completely detested it. That doesn’t erase the fact that sitting through the video of it was unbearable and not knowing any Russian didn’t make the experience go smoother either, though now I know that Da (да) means yes and that seems to be really useful in my book.
From the beginning of the show I felt uncomfortable, look I am an 18-year-old teenager with awkward personality traits and even though I am not a stranger to the concept of sex and how it helps to sell shows, this production was absurdly sexual from the start. In my opinion, this dramaturgical decision created a lot of confusion and the dynamics between characters seemed repetitive. But then again, that sense of confusion and repetition of traits in the different characters could be exactly what the director was trying to portrait, I guess everyone in one way or another goes through the same experiences in life, no matter your name or background we all experience sadness and loss, happiness and love. Nevertheless, it was painful to watch with our overly excited 68-year-old literature teacher.
I was fascinated by the stage design and changes of scenery, at first glance it was static but suddenly movement would appear within it. It had an air of dark pantomime that supported the farcical yet dramatic interpretation of the actors. I can only imagine the physical exhaustion of the actors and the director itself, which appeared in the play as himself destroying/transforming the sets and at times taking the role of the main character. I thought this was completely and weirdly brilliant. Although sometimes I thought they were all on some kind of drug, I applaud it.
After 3 hours of watching you start to get into a peculiar state of trans, and personally everything in the show appears to be hilarious. It was ridiculously funny the grotesque scenes of eating and bleeding, the random offering of a/the seagull, and even the attempts of suicide or murder depending on the repetition of the scene seemed now to be a really sick joke.
Don’t worry I am about to end this rant. After all, it was an experience and you should watch it if you are really interested in contemporary theatre or if just to claim bragging rights about having watched a Russian play for 4 hours straight. Nevertheless, I am still going to upload some pictures and videos for those of you who would prefer passing those valuable 4 hours watching something more interesting on Netflix.
