The Seagull – Zoomed In
Reception (1886 and 1898)
1886 (17th October) - Premieres @ Imperial Alexandrinksy Theatre, St. Petersburg
(17th October), directed by E.P. Karpov. Disaster (but successful performances in
other provincial cities).
"I didn't do the casting. No new sets were made. There had been only two
rehearsals and the actors kept forgetting their lines. The result was general panic
and total depression".
1898 - MAT directed by Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. The production had 80 hours of
rehearsal in total, spread over 24 sessions: 9 with Stanislavski and 15 with Nemirovich
(Nemirovich described the applause, which came after a prolonged silence, as bursting from the audience like a dam
breaking. )
Stanislavsky = month and a half preparing the set and the setting for the production.
hundreds of notes preparing actors' gestures, planning pauses and scene changes in the most miniscule detail (his
directorial "score" as he came to call it).
A revolution in theatre. They, in the words of Anatoly Smeliansky, "revitalised the art of acting, made a cult of the
pause, the subtext and constant interaction of the characters".
stage pictures: The audience of Konstantin's play sat with their backs to the audience, facing upstage. When the
curtain of the makeshift theatre lifted, the moonlight's brightness through the onstage audience into silhouette, a
striking dramatic image.
Stanislavsky was using all of the resources at his disposal to create a real world on the other side of the footlights.
Significantly, Stanislavsky packed his stage with detail, "realism" long before realism was known as a theatrical
concept. Bells chimed, babies cried, and swarms of servants carried Arkadina's bags in and out. Pauses, sometimes
as long as ten or twenty seconds, abounded. The acting = shockingly truthful.
Chekhov thought, it is reported, that Stanislavsky's realism was excessive: disliking particularly the departure scene
in Act 3 with several servants carrying luggage, and Stanislavsky's over use of naturalistic sound effects.
Stanislavsky's Direction and rehearsal process
The production was a great success, although Chekhov himself was critical of some of Stanislavski’s methods:
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Set design over-detailed so little left to the imagination
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Danger of smothering the real – the Realistic essence of the work – with Naturalistic detail.
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Chekov: “Why sound of dogs barking offstage?”
Student: “Because it’s realistic”
Checkov: ‘Realistic! There’s a painting by Kramskoy. What would happen if you cut the nose out of one of those
paintings and substituted a real one? The nose would be ‘realistic’ but the picture would be ruined’.
MAT continued to explore and place emphasis upon subtext,
Stanislavski had made a reputation about presenting productions that were built
around:
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Careful attention to detail
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Historical research
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Authenticity
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Rigorous planning
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Execution of the mise-en-scene
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Designs that responded to the thematic structures of a given play