Written for TheSeaGull@listbot.com Mailing List. Used with permission of author.
Hello, everybody! Now, having just come back home from New York to Seattle, I feel like I MUST tell all of you about watching "The Seagull" at the Central Park’s Delacorte Theater (part of Shakespeare in the Park festival) starring Meryl Streep, Chris Walken, Phil Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Kline,Natalie Portman, John Goodman, and Marcia Gay Harden, directed by Mike Nichols. I saw it on Tuesday, July 31st. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the ticket distribution system for the NY Shakespeare in the Park – but the tickets are FREE, however it is incredibly difficult to get them. We showed up at the park at 5:30 am and already were about 206th in line. When they opened the box office at 1:00 pm and started handing out the tickets (2 per person) they ran out by the time our turn came. We (my brother Greg and I - the GBags) walked away with a voucher. There are 50 vouchers given out to the first 50 people in line who didn’t get the actual tickets. Ours was #39 - I will remember that number for the rest of my life! That meant that we had to show up at 6:30 pm and at any time between then and beginning of the show we could get tickets. Well, we got our show passes at 8:05 pm - literally 2 min before Mike Nichols did his introduction speech and the show started. After feeling like a looser all day, because I was 100% sure that I won't be able to get in and I had to fly back the very next morning, I all of the sudden won! I now know what Wimbledon champs feel like when they are one point from loosing the final, and all of the sudden through the opponent’s double faults turn it all around and walk away with the cup.
I am originally from Russia, and I'm fluent in both Russian and English and I've seen all Chekhov plays in big Moscow theaters, this however was a completely different, very fresh interpretation. I was also very happy with the translation - it fit the American audience's state of mind like a glove - people really enjoyed it! To begin with there were 5 reasons for why I wanted to see this play –
1) Anton Chekhov,
2) our own GBags Theater 2001 Fringe Show “Chekhov, Da!” (how many of you saw it?) – I wanted to see Mike Nichols’s approach to the playwright,
3) Meryl Streep,
4) Chris Walken,
5) Philip Seymour Hoffman.And well, what can I say - if I die today, I die a happy woman! In my opinion, Phil Hoffman stole this show! I have never seen such an amazing display of natural talent and perfect actor concentration. He believed every word he said, and that made his performance touching, sincere, full of emotion, elegant, practically flawless. Maybe Treplev is my favorite character in this play and I guess this incredible and such a YOUNG actor only made me understand it even deeper by not missing a single opportunity or challenge that this difficult character gave him. He was simply wonderful, and in such a modest, quiet, seemingly effortless way J. Her and His Majesties Meryl Streep (my Goddess!!!) and Chris Walken with that incomparable speech pattern were unbelievably funny and good as usual. Both of them are such born-to-be actors that I honestly think it is impossible for either of them to be bad. They sometimes make wrong script choices, but their performances are always on the highest emotional, technical, etc. levels. Meryl was perfection – dropping her voice few notes lower, having countless “moments”, delivering almost every line in such a unique way that makes it impossible to imagine any other delivery, and her greatest moment was turning that cartwheel, really, I’m not kidding!!! It’s in the scene between Arkadina and Masha, when Arkadina is making a point of how important it is to look good and keep working. She was doing that speech, and walking around and all of the sudden she did this amazing perfect energetic cartwheel – and a perfect pause afterwards because the entire audience cheered and screamed and loved it! It was amazing. The woman is 52 years old! And of course watching Kevin Kline and Meryl – “Nathan” and “Sophie” was a blast. One could tell even from as far away as we were sitting just how much FUN they were having playing together. Marcia Gay Harden who played Masha – VERY difficult role (so small and yet so deep) fell somewhat short from doing the part full justice, but many of her choices were fun to watch. John Goodman…well after seeing “The Big Labowski” just hearing “Walter's" voice makes me laugh! His part – the estate manager - is not very challenging, more of a comic relief, a walk on, fit him very well, he was confident, comfortable, believable. Seeing Natalie Portman, although definitely beautiful and talented, felt somewhat strange. I guess this was another proof of the fact that talent alone is not enough and what a difference talent + training + years and years of experience can make. She felt like a weak link, even in her last scene with Phil Hoffman, they were not on the same level. It must have been the most valuable learning experience for her, and it was definitely one of the most valuable and memorable learning, emotional and cultural experiences of my life.
Sitting there, in that gorgeous, open-space theater, seeing the silhouettes of the Manhattan skyline that added such a hip and yet exotic element to the superb set, stars shining above our heads (it was a picture perfect day and night by the way J) and all those brilliant stars shining on the stage just a few feet away – it made me realize once again that it’s all worth it. Like Nina (the Seagull) says, "the most important part of leading this (actor’s) life is stamina". It’s all worth it: the 15 hour waiting in line, loosing all those nerve cells, one thought constantly going through my head "Will I get in or not, will I get in or not!" and all of the auditions we go to (I am an actress), the humiliation or being rejected for having an accent or not being the right type, all of it, it’s all worth doing again and again. Because if and when you WIN – feeling weak and proud, and actually indifferent to all the cheering in your honor, completely satisfied and exhausted you silently cheer for yourself. And all you want to do is sleep, which by the way is how I feel right now J Thanks, guys, for reading through all this gibberish. I’ll talk to you all later, good night.
-- Gayana
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