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Date: 08-03-2001, Newsday. A Starry 'Seagull' Actors from Hollywood, Broadway and television's A-lists take parts big and small in Chekhov's masterpiece. By Blake Green. STAFF WRITER
That in mind, the place to be this summer is the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where "The Seagull" with its star-studded cast is being performed through Aug. 26. Tickets have been in demand since the first preview. (And, who knows? Some people might just be interested in the performances and not necessarily the fame of the actors doing them.) Mike Nichols directs. Meryl Streep stars. So do Kevin Kline, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Christopher Walken and a number of other actors with familiar faces. In its 46-year history, the Public Theater's annual, free Shakespeare in Central Park season has had a history of attracting famous names for its productions - producer George C. Wolfe calls this a "reunion" cast; "almost everyone in it has worked at the Public before." Even so, this production is almost an embarrassment of riches. The choice of Anton Chekhov's play supposedly was Streep's. The actress, who's hinted for years that she'd like to return to the stage, where her acting career began, approached Nichols, with whom she'd worked on the films "Silkwood" and "Postcards From the Edge," about directing her in the juicy role of Madame Irina Arkadina, a vain actress aware that the years are fleeing by. Nichols, in turn, called Wolfe, who was delighted to hand over the space. "Everyone wants to work for Mike," Wolfe says as explanation for the plethora of stars who signed on to play the supporting roles. "The Seagull" is, of course, one of the theater's greatest classics. It's a story of yearnings, mostly thwarted: Konstantin (Hoffman) for Nina (Portman), Nina for Trigorin (Kline), Trigorin for Madame Arkadina - and, briefly, Nina - Masha (Marcia Gay Harden) for Konstantin, Semyon (Stephen Spinella) for Masha, Arkadina for her vanished youth. Intending it as his statement about creativity and the role of the artist, Chekhov was heavy on symbolism, not the least being the dead bird that inspires all sorts of things, including the finale's suicide, so over the top that anyone but Chekhov probably couldn't have gotten away with it. He almost didn't. The prerevolution Russian doctor who became one of the world's most famous playwrights wrote "The Seagull" in the early 1890s. When it was first performed in St. Petersburg, it was such a critical disaster that the depressed playwright seriously considered abandoning his artistic career. However, an 1898 revival in Moscow was such a rousing success that he went on to write "Uncle Vanya," "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard." The four plays are considered his masterpieces. There have been a number of local productions of "The Seagull, " including at the Public. In 1980, Rosemary Harris played Madame Arkadina, and Walken was the writer Boris Trigorin, who's her lover. (This time he's Sorin, the actress' brother on whose country estate the play is set.) That production was judged disappointing, as have more recent productions, including the National Actors Theatre version on Broadway in 1992. There, too, the cast was stellar: Tyne Daly, Jon Voight, Ethan Hawke, Laura Linney. "Pretty pedestrian business," critiqued Newsday's Linda Winer. The Blue Light Theatre's Off-Broadway production in 1998, with the same Tom Stoppard translation that is being utilized in the park, and with Maria Tucci as Arkadina, fared no better. This time, reviews come along late in the run: "The Seagull" will only have two weeks of performances left when it officially opens Sunday, Aug. 12, after three weeks of previews. Meanwhile, the actors' names alone are drawing long lines of people hoping for tickets - some of whom may know that most of these stars happen to have an impressive pedigree of credits, many in the theater. JOHN GOODMAN (Ilya Shamrayev, estate manager): A dinosaur was worked into the time frame of "The Skin of Our Teeth," Goodman's last play at the Delacorte in 1998, but he's best known for playing modern guys - such as Roseanne' s long-suffering husband, Dan, in the ABC sitcom "Roseanne" - and, sometimes, gals: e.g., Linda Tripp on "Saturday Night Live." DEBRA MONK (Polina, Shamrayev's wife): For several seasons she' s played Katie, Det. Andy Sipowicz's ex-wife in "NYPD Blue." She co-wrote and starred in the musicals "Oil City Symphony" and "Pump Boys and Dinettes." And she won a Tony for "Redwood Curtain" and was featured in "The Bridges of Madison County" with Meryl Streep. MARCIA GAY HARDEN (Masha, Shamrayev's daughter): Her portrayal of Lee Krasner, the artist's wife (and artist) in "Pollock" won her a best supporting actress Oscar this year. Now Masha's also in love with an artist. Harden was in "Angels in America" with Stephen Spinella and in "The First Wives Club" with Monk. PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (Konstantin, the aspiring writer): If Hoffman' s characters are rarely sensitive, artistic souls like Konstantin, they match him in dysfunctionality. Last year on Broadway he played a memorable lout in "True West"; in the film "Flawless" he was a drag queen. He directs as well as acts and was in "The Big Lebowski" with Goodman. KEVIN KLINE (Boris Trigorin, the established writer): A familiar face in Shakespearean fare at the Public Theater, Kline also has been in Chekhov' s "Three Sisters" and "Ivanov" on Broadway. He won two Tonys, for the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" and "The Pirates of Penzance." In films, he starred with Streep in "Sophie's Choice," got to kiss another, current Broadway star, Tom Selleck, in "In and Out," and won an Oscar as best supporting actor for "A Fish Called Wanda." MERYL STREEP (Madame Irina Arkadina, the established actress): Streep is tied with Katharine Hepburn for most Oscar nominations (12; she's won twice), but with the notable exception of "The French Lieutenant's Woman," most roles have been modern-day women. For the stage, however, her characters - many for the Public Theater in the '70s - have included a number of classics, including Dunyasha in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." NATALIE PORTMAN (Nina, the aspiring actress): She's also best known as a film star, and, in that category, for Queen Amiudala in "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace." Her parents live on Long Island, and she is a student at Harvard. She starred as Anne in "The Diary of Anne Frank" on Broadway in 1998. CHRISTOPHER WALKEN (Pyotr Sorin, owner of the estate): A Queens native, Walken was a child actor. He and Streep appeared together in "The Deer Hunter" in 1978, for which he won an Academy Award as best supporting actor. He made his stage debut in 1959 and moved back and forth between the theater and movies, where in recent years he's specialized in menacing, creepy characters. In 1999 he was in "James Joyce's The Dead" on Broadway; he plays a movie director in the new film, "America's Sweethearts." LARRY PINE (Yevgeny Dorn, a doctor): Pine was in "The Seagull" earlier at the Public, playing Konstantin in 1975, and was in the cast of the A&E series "100 Centre Street." His films include "Vanya on 42nd Street," a modern- day adaptation of the Chekhov play. He was in the film "The Ice Storm" with Kline. STEPHEN SPINELLA (Semyon Medvedenko, a schoolmaster, husband of Masha): His character is again a sad sack - as Spinella was, charmingly so, in "James Joyce's The Dead." He won Tonys for his portrayal of "Angels in America" AIDS victim Prior Walter in "Part One: Millennium Approaches" and "Part Two: Perestroika." Things were not so bleak in the comedy "Love! Valour! Compassion!" on Broadway and film. COMPILED BY BLAKE GREEN WHERE & WHEN "The Seagull" is performed Tuesdays through Sundays at 8 p.m. in the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Through Aug. 26. Free tickets are available at 1 p.m. the day of the performance at the theater and at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. Blake Green, THEATER / A Starry 'Seagull' / Actors from Hollywood, Broadway and television's A-lists take parts big and small in Chekhov's masterpiece., Newsday, 08-03-2001, pp D16. |
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