Anton Pavlovič Čechov

The Seagull

Mahen Theatre / Drama Dates and tickets

A majestic comedian’s concert by an ensemble of actors who love playing together and are keen to pass their passion and complicity to theatregoers. A high concentration of love, mutual incomprehension and the impossibility to ‘see the light’, all rendered in Chekhov’s spectacular style.

At a country house owned by famous actress Arkadina, her son Treplev is working on one of his own plays to be performed by Nina Zarechnaya. Their creative energy is supposed to merge into one single artistic image. However, the performance turns into a fiasco and the young Treplev loses all chances to win Nina’s love and appreciation as well as his mother’s respect. This is how the play sets out. Chekhov creates, through the entanglement of love and family relationships, a picture of human suffering on the threshold of the twentieth century – instead of famous deeds and romantic heroes, here we see just the pain of modern man. By means of poetic language and inexorable humour, the author depicts characters and situations that are alive and surprisingly contemporary. It is the first of the great plays by the Russian playwright and writer, which, staged in 1896, founded one of the directions of modern theatre. On Czech stages, Chekhov’s plays have always been shown at crucial moments of Czech drama. First introduced by Jaroslav Kvapil, the founder of the Czech modern theatre direction, they later constituted the main dramaturgical pillar of Divadlo Za Branou, and became particularly prominent at the end of the top period of Činoherní Klub. In the 1990’s, Chekhov represented a challenge to postmodern directors, in the first place Petr Lébl. The Mahen Theatre will now continue this tradition under the direction of  Štěpán Pácl, who acted in Lébl’s performances, was a student under Otomar Krejča, and is a disciple of Jaroslav Vostrý (dramaturge of Činoherní Klub). It is Vostrý’s new translation of The Seagull that is currently being staged in Brno.

Premiere: 18th December 2020 at the Mahen Theatre

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Production team

Jaroslav Vostrý Translation
Štěpán Pácl Direction
Jaroslav Jurečka Dramaturgy
Ján Tereba Stage design
Alena Dziarnovich Costume design

Cast

When do we play?

Photogallery