The Three Seagulls
Bristol Old Vic
★★★★✩
UNDER the skilled leadership of director Sally Cookson, 14 members of the graduating cohort of the Bristol 0ld Vic Theatre School have devised this fresh new look at Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece The Seagull.
They have based their work on three very different adaptations by Christopher Hampton, Anya Reiss and Aaron Posner, and with Maria Terry and Cat Fuller’s costume and set designs determinedly trying to give the actors as much freedom to express themselves as possible, without the restrictions of traditional theatre, they set themselves an extremely difficult task.
The result is an exciting, if occasionally blurred telling of the dramatic story of the clash of two generations of artistic talents.
Produced in spite of tremendous problems thrown up by the pandemic, this production takes on an even greater importance for these graduates than is usually the case.
Playing with great intensity and commitment, the cast, who have tuned their theatrical skills over the past three years at the Old Vic Theatre School, leave no stone unturned as they seek to get to the very bottom of the characters’ emotions.
In an effort to give every one of the 14-strong cast an opportunity to take centre stage at an important moment, the cast rotate the roles so that only three characters are played throughout by the same actor. There is a drawback to this in that the actors concerned, whilst having a big, often showy scene in which to make a mark, do not have the opportunity to build and grow the character throughout the play.
Also, because in some ways this format leaves us with a series of individual scenes, it would be unfair, and virtually impossible to compare one actor’s portrayal of a character with another’s take on the same role.
I have to admit that I found an hour-and-three-quarters presentation with no interval a bit of a long haul, but watching this enthusiastic group of players, bubbling over with talent, ducking and diving with great athleticism in and around the scaffolding of the set made it all worthwhile. They also made you look afresh at an established classic and as Sally Cookson says in her introductory note our relationship with theatre, the nature of art, isolation, ambition and endurance, which combine to make this a very worthwhile evening at the theatre.