The Seagull for Adelaide Festival
South Australia’s State Theatre Company is to open its 2014 season with one of the modern era’s greatest plays, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.
Presented in association with the Adelaide Festival, the production will be performed in traverse staging in the company’s Scenic Workshop.
The Seagull, written in 1895 and first performed in 1896, follows the romantic conflicts between four characters, namely the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingénue Nina Zarechnaya, the fading actress Irina Arkadina and her son, the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev.
The State Theatre Company’s innovative production of The Seagull is a new adaptation by Australian playwright, Hilary Bell.
The play features young star, Xavier Samuel, who returns to his home town to play the tortured Konstantin. After Hollywood success in films such as The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Anonymous, Drift, and having recently starred alongside Naomi Watts in Adoration, Xavier returns to the stage, his first love.
Joining Xavier in this exciting production is another super-star, ex-State Theatre Company Artistic Director, Rosalba Clemente. Clemente is well-known to Adelaide theatre lovers and returns after a decade’s absence, in the role of the fiery Arkadina.
The remaining cast is quality personified. It includes Matilda Bailey, Paul Blackwell, Terence Crawford, Lizzy Falkland, Lucy Fry, Matthew Gregan, Renato Mussolino and Chris Pitman.
The creative team behind the acclaimed Kreutzer Sonata, director Geordie Brookman and set and lighting designer Geoff Cobham, are pleased to return to the atmospheric environment of the Scenic Workshop in the heart of State Theatre Company for this much-anticipated Adelaide Festival event.
‘I’ve been waiting a long time to direct Chekhov,’ says Geordie Brookman, ‘and when the combination of Xavier, Rosalba, Hilary Bell, the Festival and the intimate setting of the Workshop came together it was irresistible.’
Says the LA Times of Chekhov’s classic, ‘The Seagull was labelled a comedy, but it’s a dark one that veers off into tragedy…in that sublimely concentrated way of Chekhov’s.’
Whether comedy or tragedy, The Seagull explores emotion, creativity, and romantic conflict with the incisive clarity of a doctor and the passionate heart of a poet. It’s an Adelaide Festival production not to be missed.
Lesley Reed
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au or BASS 131 246 (Check for prices and times)
Dates: February 21- March 16
Venue: State Theatre Company Scenic Workshop, Adelaide Festival Centre
Running Time: 2 hours 20 minutes, incl. interval