The Seagull
by Anton Chekhov
(adapted by Daniel Minsky)
March 10th – 27th, 1999
The Lab, 8 Britain St.
Chekhov’s bird flies to Hollywood!
In this contemporary adaptation of the Russian master’s classic, John Treplov is a love struck writer who battles his way through a world deeply rooted in its pretentious standards. Leading and creating those standards in this archetypal 1950’s Hollywood society is John’s notorious and temperamental mother, the famous screen actress, Kathleen Belmont. Kathleen and her entourage of wealthy Sunset Boulevard doctors, lawyers, intellectuals and lovers laugh and drink their way through the summer months at her brother’s Malibu beach house.
A story about the easiness of forgetting, this Hollywood backdrop may be the perfect place to view these caricatures wander around aimlessly, losing themselves in the lies and deceit that make up their transposed Chekhovian world. The only hope they may have of catching a glimpse of what they’ve lost may lie in an old dead seagull – a symbol of other times, of purer purpose, and of course, the stuff that dreams are made of…
Upstart Crow Theatre Group 