The Seagull - Playhouse / Harold Pinter

I didn’t enjoy this. It made a great play seem boring and self-indulgent. I think the set and the modernisation could have worked with a sharper adaptation and less ponderous direction. I quite liked the actors all being on stage throughout. But it was so slow, seemed like all apart from Indira Varma had been directed to speak in monotonous whispers. Why?

I took a friend who'd never seen a Chekhov play before. I was explaining beforehand why I like Chekhov - his understanding of human fallibility and fragility, the characters who, despite being C19 Russian and often wealthy, are going through things that are often achingly familiar in modern life - boredom, feeling trapped, anguish over missed opportunities or mistakes, relationships with the wrong people, difficult families, failures to communicate, loneliness, etc.

Then we saw the play and I think my friend described it as self-absorbed, pretentious and boring. I couldn't disagree with that and I couldn't explain what Jamie Lloyd was trying to do with this. I felt like this production had taken all those themes and somehow managed to make them very unrelatable. I don't dislike modern versions, or minimal stageing, visible microphones, etc, if it serves the play well and shows us a different perspective. But in this production those things seemed to work against the material and create a barrier between audience and play.

I don’t think I’ve seen a Lloyd directed show where bare feet aren’t included somewhere. Piaf, Evita, numerous plays…

Cyrano didn't feature bare feet either...was it directed or just produced by Lloyd?

I think bare feet for Cyrano would have been dangerous lol. Lots of scenes of men huddling, fighting and cheering, they would have risked stepping on each other's feet...

Saw the matinee today and rather liked it. I have seen so many versions of Chekov from traditional, to semi traditional with modern dress but this obviously moves more modern with the language. I thought actually the actors had to do a lot with their voice because there were no other tricks available to them. I quite liked that. I did thing first half went on a little too long as ai was getting fiddly and tired toward half time. Front of house staff were lovely and I saw people bringing bunches of flowers the front of staff was taking. Presumably for Emilia, who really did a fine job. I wouldn’t want to see a lot of plays done like this but for this production I liked it. Indira Varma was very good without any of that elaborate costuming that most women who play Her or Ranevskaya have. Liked the guy playing Trigorin.

A lovely day out.

Saw the NT Live of this in the cinema today and for me...it was...ok.

Just ok. And this coming from someone who has never seen a Chekov play before in my life and went into this simply because of Emilia Clarke. It works. Star leads definitely sell tickets. Especially for less known plays.

THE PROS
- Indira Varma is the best of the ten, excellent performance
- Emilia Clarke, very sweet and easy role for her West End debut (now for something more daring)
- Robert Glenister, underrated actor in a small role

THE CONS
- Lack of staging, wasn't a fan of the miniminalist style and thus had me confused as to where they were location wise (again - never seen a Chekov play)
- Actors not leaving the stage therefore making it difficult to know who is in what scene
- Dry story that isn't that engaging at times nor compelling.

So yeah, was what it was. So-so.