Theatre Thursday- OSF Spring 2012-Seagull

Last weekend was my 12th wedding anniversary. My dear hubs took me down to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We only had time for one play but are planning to return in the summer and fall to see more.  We saw Seagull by Anton Chekhov adapted by Libby Appel and translated by Allison Horsley. Libby Appel was the Artistic Director for OSF before Bill Rauch took over.

Appel loves Chekhov as much as I love Shakespeare, which is quite a lot.  So, it was with great care and understanding that she adapted and directed this play.  The results are glorious and surprising with few bumps at the performance we attended.

Seagull is a lesson in subtext. Something that all good actors understand.  The effectiveness of the actors in this play hinges upon their ability to portray the underlying emotions of their characters. Thus, the performances that were the most memorable were those who were the characters even when they were not speaking.

Kate Hurster is my new favorite stage actress. She has it. She is Masha.  I can now add that role to the list of roles I would like to play. Even when she is not speaking she is telling Masha's story brilliantly. The longing she feels for Konstantin is palpable. Konstantin was played by Tasso Feldman another wonderful actor who I hope sticks around at OSF for a long while.  I felt that Hurster and Feldman ran away with the show, too bad their characters never were able to run away together. Perhaps it was their stories that appealed to me the most and thus they stood out to me.   It is one of those shows that I wish I could watch it over and over because you would see something new each time.

The brilliance of Chekhov, like Shakespeare, is that he has the ability to effectively portray a variety of characters from all walks of life.   Chekhov seems to do it in far fewer words than Shakespeare.
The audience sees themselves in certain characters depending on their life experiences. Thus, mine and my hubby's differing opinions of our favorite characters.

Seagull at OSF shows how Chekhov was meant to be done.

A fun side note: as I was reading through the program and artist bios, I read that one of the actresses Lisa Wolpe who played Polina has worked at Southwest Shakespeare Company. So, that made me smile. Also, some of the minor characters were played by interns from Southern Oregon University and Jonathan Dyrud is a graduate from SOU and is working on getting his equity card. Those facts made me excited about my possibilities in the future!