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The Seagull | The Barbican | ★★★★☆
“I know that’s not what you expected,” says Zachary Hart’s Simon as he dismounts from his quad bike. Neither did I expect him to whip out a guitar and start belting out Billy Bragg’s The Milkman of Human Kindness. But this is not your run-of-the-mill Chekhov adaptation.
This is an all singing, all dancing production of The Seagull in which star casting goes beyond the megawatt power of Cate Blanchett and permeates the entire ensemble, which includes Emma Corrin as Nina, Tanya Reynolds as Masha, Paul Higgins as Ilya, Tom Burke as Alexander and Jason Watkins as Peter.
It’s directed by German auteur Thomas Ostermeier, who last year returned to London with a revival of his take on Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, during which the audience were invited to yell questions at the cast.
Like that production, this is a thoroughly, unashamedly modern adaptation. There are references to Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The characters play badminton. Konstantin’s play-within-a-play is reimagined as a shambolic virtual reality monologue. It’s all quite mad but it works. Mostly.
After Simon is done playing the guitar, Masha appears through the solitary patch of shrubbery adorning the vast Barbican stage in a cloud of vape smoke. Simon’s in love with Masha but Masha’s in love with Konstantin but Konstantin’s in love with Nina but Nina will shortly be falling in love with Alexander, who was once in love with Konstantin’s mother Irina, who is loved by the town’s doctor. It’s like a Shakespeare comedy, except everyone remains depressed at the end and one character blows their head off with a shotgun.
Blanchett’s Irina doesn’t actually appear for 20 minutes, although she certainly makes up for lost time. She’s extremely fabulous as fading superstar Irina Arkádina, camping her way through scenes in a series of garish jumpsuits. Apropos of nothing, she croons her way through Let It Be. She tap dances. She even does the splits. She’s magnetic but, like her character, does have a tendency to eclipse everyone else, which is a shame when you have a cast this good.
With all the singing and dancing and quad bikes, this is already an incredibly eggy pudding and there are times when I could have done without Blanchett chucking in quite so many eggs of her own. Still, given a choice of too much or not enough, I’ll take too much every time.
It’s still Chekhov underneath it all, of course: nobody finds love, everybody compromises, dreams turn to ash. But these faintly ridiculous characters really bring out Chekhov’s dark humour. Lines like “I’m in mourning” / “For what?” / “My life – I’m unhappy” land as pure comedy despite the quiet desperation behind them.
I’m not sure all the parts of this absurd, beautiful jigsaw fit together especially well – what’s the significance behind the repetition of The Stranglers’ Golden Brown? Why do characters directly address the audience through microphones? – but it’s fun just looking at the pieces. And if those watching it have half as good a time as Blanchett is clearly having, that alone will justify the price of the ticket.
• The Seagull starring Cate Blanchett is on at the Barbican now – book your tickets here
