Quantum’s “Seagull” Reinvigorates Chekhov

Gender-flipping classic roles in theater has become so commonplace that it’s now almost de rigueur.  What director wants to go to a hipster cocktail party these days and confess that he or she is casting a white cis male as Hamlet?  I’ve seen so many female Julius Caesars that I now expect the play to be called “Julia Caesar.”  The Greeks and the Elizabethans had no problem switching roles around; it was our damn Puritan ancestors who screwed things up by straightening them out, and we’ve been swimming back to our dramatic origins ever since.  We’re still tepid dabblers in this cultural inversion, however; check out Toshio Matsumoto’s brilliant recasting of “Oedipus Rex” in his iconoclastic 1969 film, “Funeral Parade of Roses” if you really want to see some risk in casting.  

But what has all this gotten us?  Usually, change for the sake of change.  Maybe a few twists of dialogue, perhaps an ironic scene or two, but mostly, in the aesthetic sense, nothing.  But now, after all the trans Hamlets and feminist Odysseys, we have Quantum Theatre’s production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” (1896) with the main character, a young man, Constantine, played by a woman, Phoebe Lloyd.  Not only is this gender switch effective, but it gives this play a sensibility I’ve never encountered.  In fact, I think it makes the dénouement even more emotionally satisfying.  And furthermore, I would argue, this innovation works better than any traditional casting that I’ve seen. 

Often, Constantine is depicted as a nervous young man, a classic Chekhovian coming-of-age writer who in this case wants to throw out the old theatrical world and start fresh with a sense of overwhelming naïveté.  In Ms. Lloyd’s rendering, this agitation becomes histrionic.  I don’t attribute this choice necessarily to her – having seen her work recently in Barebones Productions’ “Crocodile Fever” — which had a more rooted and I might say chthonic foundation – but rather to the director, Joanie Schultz, who it appears applied this style to most of the female parts.  

And this is surprising, given how underplayed the role of Trigorin is by Brett Mack, who did not go the typical “smarmy” route with this character, as evinced, for example, by the aging James Mason in Sidney Lumet’s 1968 film adaptation of the play.  Thus, Mr. Mack’s insouciant demeanor, coupled with his unusual equanimity and relative youth, forces the audience to see his seduction of the coquettish Nina, played by Julia Rocha, as utterly passive – not a common interpretation.  But a much more mysterious and engaging one.

Director Schultz’s adaptation is refreshing and modern in many ways, especially the feminist references, which worked and were justified.  My only suggestion would be to take out a few of the “I am a seagull” lines given to Nina, which becomes her crutch phrase, and after a while, annoyingly pedantic.  The seagull in this play – shot and thrown on the stage for Nina by the lovesick Constantine — is really van Gogh’s ear – the kind of metaphor that can become distracting because of what it is, and should be referenced judiciously, in only the most crucial situations.  

But these are minor issues.  See this play for its psychological take on gender (which Freud would have loved), the subtle and unique interpretation Mr. Mack brings to a character we thought we knew, and oh yes, I almost forgot, the shimmering set, next to a romantic pond on the Chatham University campus, which could be right out of a Merchant Ivory production.  This is an enlightening show for those unfamiliar with Chekhov, and even more so for those who know this play, but would love the epiphany of seeing it as if for the first time.