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A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

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It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...

Theatre: Enemies

In keeping with a week of corporate greed, I had the opportunity to see Gorky's play Enemies performed at the Almeida Theatre on Thursday. It is a new translation by David Hare and it was fantastic (the critics seem to think so as well). As an ensemble piece the actors worked so well together, and they were rather pleasing on the eye as well but I digress…

Gorky's play is about trouble at a Russian factory. When the managing directory of the family-run factory is shot and killed is it the start of a worker uprising or was it just an accident? The family is split between those who see conspiracies and those who sympathise with the oppressed workers, so the drama is set. This translation keeps thing going at a brisk pace and there is enough fiery dialogue in it to keep anybody's attention focussed on the action at hand. The final scene although a tad abrupt, did really sum it all up well (and was accompanied with a slight amount of theatrical flourish)…  It was enough to make you go "oooh". I think I did as I had had too much red wine by this point on an empty stomach…

It is also worth pointing out that the drama takes place on a stage that was gorgeously set - a garden with trees and grass and woodland. Not at all like the cheap set thrown together for the National Theatre's Voysey Inheritance.  

Interestingly at drinks following the play not everyone who saw the play loved it. One rather famous theatre person was pouring shit over the production in between hoovering down the canapés. Perhaps it wasn't his cup of tea as he prefers his Gorky embalmed rather than injected with real drama.  There's no pleasing some people I suppose.

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