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A Languid Summer 'Seagull' From the RSC

by Zoe Strimpel
Fri, 21 Dec 2007 at 2:08 PM

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And so to see the other side of the Royal Shakespeare Company's double bill at the New London Theatre. Having seen a breathtaking "King Lear" (starring Ian McKellen), it was wondrous to see the cast every bit as strong, and perhaps stronger, in Chekhov's "The Seagull" on Wednesday.

No McKellen this time — it was his night off — but we had a wonderful, endearing turn by William Gaunt (Gloucester in "Lear") as Sorin, at whose country house the action takes place.

Trevor Nunn's production is not hurried — the show runs a leisurely three hours and 20 minutes. (Last year's "Seagull" at the National was a far quicker affair — and met with mixed reviews.) But it is pleasant in the extreme to take such time over a play like this. The audience is drawn into the languid summer setting of the first half — the scenes are full and leisurely, the birds and insects chirp and tweet, the young lovers Nina and Konstantin swoon naïvely for each other and for Art.

Frances Barber (Goneril in "Lear") is scrumptious as Arkadina, Konstantin's self-obsessed mother, a famous actress with a young and celebrated writer lover, Trigorin. She squawks and purrs and shouts and seduces with a rich energy and ease. Richard Goulding — who only has a bit part in "Lear" as "knight/messenger" — balloons to great acting stature as the endlessly unlucky, high-strung Konstantin. And Monica Dolan — a boozy, screechy Regan in "Lear" — uses the same squawky edginess to make herself a superbly tragicomic Masha, hopelessly devoted to Konstantin and scornful of her doting husband.

Romola Garai, perhaps the most famous of the cast for her role in the movie "Atonement," shoulders a great deal as Nina, the disowned daughter of a neighboring landowner and the object of Konstantin's doomed love. Nina is a difficult character to play, for her role is all about acting. She plays a bad but earnest actress in Konstantin's symbolist play at the beginning, then overplays herself as the keen and earnest devotee of Trigorin, then sets her heart on making it as a professional actress. But she fails miserably in this pursuit, for lack of talent, or luck, or advice (though mostly, it seems, talent).

The thing is, Ms. Garai's voice is wheedling and irksome throughout, her gestures overdone and her demeanor annoying. Either this is a stroke of genius — she is encapsulating the self-conscious irony of her part — or she really does need some work as an actress. As Cordelia, she had less stage time to irritate, certainly. However, in general the play, despite its great length, felt anything but slow. And, unlike at "Lear," there were seats to spare — refreshingly for London, tickets shouldn't be an obstacle.

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