Review: ARC’s The Seagull

I’ve had Seagulls on my mind … Last spring, Capital Stage mounted Stupid F##king Bird, a saucy modern “remix” of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 classic The Seagull. And the Art Theater of Davis did Seagull outdoors on a grassy expanse at the Davis Cemetery, under a full moon.

The current buzz over the film Lady Bird brought another Seagull to mind: I first saw Greta Gerwig (the film’s director) in 2001, when she was 18, playing Nina in a Sacramento production of The Seagull directed by Ed Claudio.

Now The Seagull has landed yet again as a visually attractive, thoughtfully mounted American River College production directed by Janis Stevens.

This is a play that artfully combines frivolous comedy and deep despair in a haunting manner. There are many worthy performances in this production, including Mieke Rosencranz as Nina (20-ish daughter of a rich landowner—she dreams of going to Moscow and becoming an actress) and Evan Lucero as Konstantin (20-ish son of a famous actress, determined be a great writer, spinning his wheels in a small town). Eric Maier plays the impoverished schoolteacher Medvedenko (whose sighs about supporting his large family on his pitiful salary remind one of the Sacramento teachers who recently almost went on strike.) And Nicholas Unquera as the elderly Sorin (snoring in his wheelchair, just like one of my relatives at the Thanksgiving dinner I’d attended a few days earlier).

There aren’t many plays I’d look forward to seeing staged three times in the same year. But The Seagull is surely one—it grows on you with each mounting. If you’ve never experienced this play in person, this would be a good place to start.