Duquesne University Red Masquers’ recent stab at the histrionically bombastic and deeply Russian melodrama that features a murdered and mangled bird as a romantic gesture (like I said, deeply Russian), is an earnest and eager attempt to bring Chekov’s unaltered vision to a young, modern audience. Red Masquers’ approach in translating and reproducing the source material is doggedly spot on, and Nancy Bach, Lauren Linsao, Justin Sines, and Nick Cipriano have excelled as director, assistant director, technical director/light designer, and technical assistant (respectively) in crafting a show that captures the nuances of the original without allowing artifice to run amok. John E. Lane, Jr. and his team should enjoy equal praise for The Seagull’s set design, which appropriately maintains the minimalism necessary to both serve as a backdrop to the story and also convey the crushing simplicity of the rural existence that further fuels the psychological disarray of Trigorin, his mother, and their friends and lovers.
An essential facet of successfully executing Russian dramas is allowing free reign to the actors to make the secondary and supporting characters to be as wonderfully hyperbolic and eccentrically expressive as possible. To interpret these supporting characters as such not only facilitates the show’s sense of authenticity and watchability, but it helps construct the juxtaposition between the fragile yet frantic, psychologically degenerating, (often male) protagonist and the world around him. If done efficaciously, the supporting characters function as the preposterous and amusing id to the rapidly destabilizing super-ego that the protagonist represents. Red Masquers Seagull cast more or less nails it with this metaphoric balance in their adaption, with a bit of timid here and there impeding them occasionally. Liviu Reynolds’ Konstantine is a bit more fretful and nervous than manically self-debasing, but Reynolds shows great promise with his committed interpretation of the unbalanced, failed prodigy. Dana Demsko is resplendent as Irina, bringing all the pompousness, acerbic bite, and clandestine vulnerability to Konstantine’s complicated mother. The members of the supporting cast—particularly standouts Nikki Purwin (Masha), Max Begler (Shamraev) and Jay Keenan (Sorin)—are for the most part, perfect in their deliveries, generating the ideal mixture of Eastern European malcontent, thwarted romantic idealism, and hilarious, axiomatic nonsensicality.
Red Masquers’ adaption of The Seagull is appropriately and approachably traditional, a re-envisioning of the original that does not veer into experimentation or abstraction—and rightly so. Making commanding use of the somewhat challenging size and layout of Genesius Theatre, the production is both fun and sensible from technical and entertainment standpoints. Don’t miss out on the chance to see some of Duquesne’s rising stars, or how to learn how not to seduce a woman with a bird in a bag.
The Seagull runs through December 9th. For tickets click here.
Eva Phillips is celebrating her third year in Pittsburgh, third year writing for PGH in the Round, and twenty-seventh year not getting murdered (shockingly, despite all odds). She relocated to the brittle Steel City from Virginia to pursue her Masters in Literary and Cultural Studies at CMU (with a concentration in film theory and film criticism, and intersections with feminism and gender), and has spent the past few years in Pittsburgh cultivating her writing career, developing her blog https://www.tuesgayswithmorrie69.net/, raising two show cats, and widening her perspectives on the ever-evolving spectrum of theatre. She only has one Les Miserables tattoo out of her 32 tattoos, and she finds that morally reprehensible.
Categories: Archived Reviews