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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Theatre: The Seagull

Friday night I caught The Seagull at the National Theatre. It is a new version of the Chekhov play by Martin Crimp that has been getting good notices but not so great audiences as they have been discounting tickets to get the punters in.

Juliet Stevenson as Arkadina the fading leading leady features in a great cast in a story about artists and the new Turks, unrequited and lost love. Her son Konstantin is a new writer and is in love with Nina but Arkadina's lover Trigorin steals her away. Meanwhile Masha is in love with Konstantin but it is unrequited. In between the high drama there are a lot of things unsaid but then again this is Russia and Chekhov.

The ending (spoiler to follow) left a lot of people dazed and startled when it ends in the suicide of Konstantin offstage with a loud bang. It certainly made me jump. Arkadina barely has enough time to scream at the news before the curtain came down. We all filed out of the theatre not saying much… Maybe the drama felt a little too real…

As for the title, it isn't actually a direct translation of Chekhov's original name. But all English translators have felt that it was more appropriate, particularly when Nina utters the line "I am a seagull". The alternate – "I am a puffin" – doesn't quite convey the same impact for a serious drama I suppose…

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