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    The Seagull
    The Seagull
    The Seagull
    Audiobook1 hour

    The Seagull

    Written by Anton Chekhov

    Narrated by Calista Flockhart, T.R. Knight, Josh Stamberg and Full Cast

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Translated by Christopher Hampton. Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is considered one of his most haunting and atmospheric character studies. A would-be playwright is at war with his egoistic mother while the town has become intoxicated by a sensational author.

    And as the alluring newcomer steals away Kosta’s only love, their new romance could have devastating consequences.

    An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance. Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Recorded by L.A. Theatre Works before a live audience.

    Public Domain (P)2013 L.A. Theatre Works

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL.A. Theatre Works
    Release dateApr 15, 2013
    ISBN9781580819190
    Author

    Anton Chekhov

    Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in Southern Russia and moved to Moscow to study medicine. Whilst at university he sold short stories and sketches to magazines to raise money to support his family. His success and acclaim grew as both a writer of fiction and of plays whilst he continued to practice medicine. Ill health forced him to move from his country estate near Moscow to Yalta where he wrote some of his most famous work, and it was there that he married actress Olga Knipper. He died from tuberculosis in 1904.

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    Reviews for The Seagull

    4/5

    289 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Saw this play in 1991, in a garage theatre close in Lisbon.
      Was a Day of Days.
      All day long we were moved by sheer will and wonder, I dared to dream the dream that all tigers would not prevent me to be the future I could be. Was not meant to be!
      At night, before the play I met a tiger in a challenge…

      So, the seagull, not being extraordinary as a play, is marked in my story in a special way.
    • 4/5
      Witty and sad. A collection of the best and worst kinds of people.
    • 3/5
      A fairly standard setting of Russian drama, I feel, with drama and death and love and everything expected.
    • 5/5
      Very impressed. Feels crisp and modern. I prefer Chekhov's plays to his short stories.
    • 4/5
      How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper and, how difficult in real life.


      The Seagull was a delightful exploration of binary contrasts, a meditation rocking the countryside as a mélange of folk gather by the shore of a lake for some Slavic R&R: adultery and suicide. I am only kidding. Echoing Hemingway, one would imagine all of Mother Rus hanging themselves judging by the pages of its marvelous literature. The contrast between urban and rural is explored as is the space between art and labor. Regret happens to ruminate and the servants receive a whole ruble to divide amongst themselves. There's a play-within-the-play which somehow struck me as did Bergman's Through A Glass Darkly and everyone appears to be quoting Hamlet. Substitute a sea gull for an albatross and pen a portrait of the artist (or author) as lecher and Bob's your uncle (but not Vanya).
    • 5/5
      The best Seagull I've seen is Stoppard's at the Old Vic in London. In fact, I bought a signed copy of Stoppard's text--as an Eastern European, I figured his Russian was better than mine. His English is, too, I say having just seen his Arcadia for the third time, first time it made real sense; in fact, one time at the Royal Court I sat next to a Cambridge prof whose history of English I had on my shelf in the states; he had returned twice because of the play's confusions. He should have come here to the Gamm Theater in Rhode Island, directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr, brilliantly. The academic played by the Gamm's Tony Estrella presented a great parody slide lecture; also, the presence of the computer made Thomasina the 18C prodigy's math insights all the more convincing.Behind me in line for the Seagull at the Old Vic was the director of the Hong Kong Shakespeare Company.
    • 2/5
      Summary (on some review-page): The Seagull by Anton Chekhov is a slice-of-life drama set in the Russian countryside at the end of the 19th century. The cast of characters is dissatisfied with their lives. Some desire love. Some desire success. Some desire artistic genius. No one, however, ever seems to attain happiness.I’m a big fan of L.A. Theatre Works - but not even this fine audiobook-production with Calista Flockhart could save this “self-occupied” play. A lot of modern existential ideas are at play here - a psychological story about self-centered artists who are unable to connect with each other or get any fulfillment out of life.I’m now wondering if I should listen to more of Chekhov’s plays.
    • 4/5
      This is what I found in my experience: some plays read well - just like any novel, while others have to be performed to be enjoyed fully. To me, "The Seagull" is definitely of the latter type. Even though I've just re-read this play in its original language (my mother tongue) and should have been smitten by Chekhov's prose, I wasn't. Ideas in the dialogues rang true, but the dialogues themselves didn't - again, on stage they probably would. The infusion of drama (some would say melodrama?) and the symbolism are, of course, undeniable. My favorite part was Trigorin's monologue about the essence of a writer's life.
    • 5/5
      I saw a brilliant production of this play on Broadway (brought over from London) a few years ago, so I guess I wouldn't say read it, I would say, if you can see a first class production of it that gets the humor and doesn't make Kostya a clueless sad sack, sell part of your book collection to get a ticket. For a writer, it's all about your worst nightmares. For anyone, the final scene between the two failed young lovers, and what follows, is devastating.

      But reading it is worthwhile too. Just pick a good translation and remember that the author had a very dry and brutal sense of humor.

      As a writer, I am always in awe of Chekhov. His characters, his dramatic structures, his settings, there is nobody like him. He was so good, in every way, and apparently once said he could toss off a salable short story about anything, about the ashtray in front of him. He was boasting, but I'm sure it was true.

    • 3/5
      Bloody good but gloomy stuff, definitly realistic in the gloomy sense of the world.