The Seagull (2015)
19 June – 11 July
By Anton Chekhov; Adaptation by Torben Betts
For the first time in the theatre's history, Chekhov was brought to the park. With a specially commissioned adaptation by playwright Torben Betts to mark the play's 120th anniversary, and superb direction by Matthew Dunster, this production really flew. With outstanding performances and an 'incredibly stylish' set (Evening Standard) by Jon Bausor, this production received much critical acclaim.
The cast
Creative team
Reviews
Daily Telegraph
"Matthew Dunster’s superbly acted revival…achieves the near-impossible: it jolts its audience awake with its dream-like action. It prises the sword of theatrical radicalism from the encumbering stone of familiarity. It turns on a disconcerting sixpence between the awfully funny and the plain painful.”
Sunday Times
“Some productions are setbound – this is an instance of one freed and set soaring by its location and design”
Mail on Sunday
“Torben Betts’s salty, peppery, idiomatic new adaptation intriguingly sharpens and expands the play’s references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and ups the comedy as well as the tragedy”
Evening Standard
“It looks exquisite. Both set and lighting design (top marks, Jon Bausor and Philip Gladwell) are incredibly stylish and enter into a delightful dialogue with the surrounding natural beauty of Regent’s Park”
The Times
“(Janie) Dee’s Arkadina is sparkling and absurd as she hilariously parades her charms, flinging her legs in the air to display her youthful suppleness and shooting glances barbed with murderous envy at Sabrina Bartlett’s breathlessly eager ingénue, Nina”
Time Out
“This electric, blackly funny adaptation off The Seagull brings out both the venom and the anguish of hopeless longing in Chekhov’s 1895 original.”