In addition to reading this play, I watched a performance on YouTube:

http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=qiPfPzt8azc

I found that this play had several similarities with the last Chekhov play I read, "Uncle Vanya". There is even the young man who tries to shoot himself. In this one, he tries again later and succeeds which made me come away with a much darker impression. Watching the performance did help me with this play but overall, Chekhov feels too bleak for me. I will come back and try him again some day but not right away. ( )

Happy to check off this one from my list. ( )

A fairly standard setting of Russian drama, I feel, with drama and death and love and everything expected. ( )

Very impressed. Feels crisp and modern. I prefer Chekhov's plays to his short stories. ( )

How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper and, how difficult in real life.


The Seagull was a delightful exploration of binary contrasts, a meditation rocking the countryside as a mélange of folk gather by the shore of a lake for some Slavic R&R: adultery and suicide. I am only kidding. Echoing Hemingway, one would imagine all of Mother Rus hanging themselves judging by the pages of its marvelous literature. The contrast between urban and rural is explored as is the space between art and labor. Regret happens to ruminate and the servants receive a whole ruble to divide amongst themselves. There's a play-within-the-play which somehow struck me as did Bergman's Through A Glass Darkly and everyone appears to be quoting Hamlet. Substitute a sea gull for an albatross and pen a portrait of the artist (or author) as lecher and Bob's your uncle (but not Vanya). ( )