In case you were concerned about what you were missing by not seeing one of the few performances of Ian McKellen is doing of Chekhov's "The Seagull," don't worry - you didn't miss anything. I imagine part of my disappointment was rooted in the fact that I saw that amazing (rumored to be Broadway bound) production with Kristin Scott Thomas at London's Royal Court Theatre in March, but this production was really just a snooze. It dragged on and on and ended up running close to 3 1/2 hours. McKellen and most of the supporting cast did a fine job, but the leads all seemed to just flounder. I really just didn't care at all about Konstantin and just couldn't wait for Konstantin to kill himself so the whole thing could be over - he was a bore to watch (no where near as interesting as Mackenzie Crook in that London production) and brought nothing interesting to the role.
I'm seeing McKellen's "King Lear" on Sunday. The reviews for that have been raves (as compared to the appropriately lousy reviews for "Seagull"), so I'm looking forward to it.
On a related note, is this the season of The Seagulls? We have this RSC production at BAM, then Classic Stage Co is doing a production in the Spring with Dianne Wiest, then there's the aforementioned rumored Broadway production with Kristin Scott Thomas, and the not so far away McCarter in Princeton is doing an adaptation by Emily Mann in May. How many productions of the play do we need? We may have had a plethora of high profile Lear's lately (Christopher Plummer, Alvin Epstein, Kevin Klein, Ian McKellen) but at least those were spread out over different seasons. Methinks producers need to start thinking outside of the box.
