Most updated adaptations of classic theater works deliver few fresh ideas or interpretations and usually elicit the response, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just present the original and have done with it.” But two current variations on oft-produced pieces prove the exception to this rule. Both Broadway’s & Juliet and The Seagull: Woodstock, NY, presented by the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center, offer new insights for contemporary audiences without tearing down their source material.
Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull has been adapted and/or updated on numerous previous occasions. In separate versions, Jeff Cohen and Emily Mann moved the complex portrait of actors and writers lounging and loving in the countryside from rural early 20th century Russia to the contemporary Hamptons. Tennessee Williams wrote a “free adaptation” called The Notebooks of Trigorin. Regina Taylor did an all-African-American modern version called Black Crow which played Broadway in 2004, while Aaron Posner deconstructed the script in his Stupid F*****g Bird, which had numerous regional productions.
In The Seagull/Woodstock, NY, Thomas Bradshaw transports Chekhov’s play to the Hudson Valley and infuses it with the sort of sexual frankness which marked his earlier works for The New Group such as Burning and Intimacy. The updated Arkadina and Trigorin (now Irene and William) view sex tapes on their I-phones and Nina now pleasures herself for the assembled guests as part of the avant-garde play written by Irene’s son Kevin (originally Konstantin). The explicit dialogue doesn’t come across as a jarring disruption but how these people would talk to each other given the erotic tinge of the times.
The essence of Chekhov’s detailed observations of literary and theatrical artists remains. It’s still an incisive portrait of a group of confused individuals searching for love, meaning, and fulfillment.
Director Scott Elliott mines the comedy as well as the drama as these egotistical, flawed artists and wannabes clash over their passions. Parker Posey is dazzlingly riotous as the narcissistic Irene, full of herself and with no care for the considerations of her lover William (Trigorin), son, or friends. Nat Wolff is equally outlandish as her fledgling playwright offspring Kevin, dissolving in tears as the object of his adolescent affection Nina (a marvelously complex Aleyse Shannon) deserts him for his mother’s boyfriend, the brilliant but emotionally aloof writer William (conflicted Ato Essandoh).
The transgender actress Hari Nef captures the bitter disappointment, sharp, sarcastic wit and outsider status of Sasha (Masha in Chekhov), not-so-secretly in love with Kevin, but eventually unhappily married to the hapless schoolteacher Mark (appropriately suppressed Patrick Foley). David Cale and Bill Sage lend spice as old rakes, and Amy Stiller and Damiel Oreskes battle amusingly as Sasha’s dysfunctional parents.
Occasionally Bradshaw hits a wrong note as when William laments a reviewer comparing his work unfavorably to that of David Sedaris which makes no sense since his fictional novelist writes in a totally different genre than the New Yorker humorist. But most of Bradshaw’s updates are spot on, finding modern equivalents to Chekhov’s details. Instead of Arkadina in a rage because there are no horses available to take her to town, Irene is infuriated because the only car available is too low-class for her glamorous image. Plus it’s not electric which would be bad for her progressive credentials.
Bradshaw skillfully recreates the complex web of relationships and artistic ambitions Chekhov weaved over a century ago. It’s an intricate structure of individual strands, each strong and true, woven with humor and compassion.
