The Seagull
- Irina Nikolayevna Arcadina; an actress
- Konstantin Gavrilovic Treplev; her son
- Pyotr Nikolayev Sorin; her brother
- Nina Michailovna Zarečnaya; a young girl, daughter of a rich landowner
- Ilya Afanasyevič Šamrayev; the manager of Sorin's estate
- Paulina Šamrayeva; his wife
- Marja Ilyinišna Šamrayeva called Masa; her daughter
- Boris Trigorin Alekseevic; an author
- Yevgeny Sergeyevič mandrel; a doctor
- Semyon Semyonovič Medvedenko; a teacher
- Jacob; a craftsman
- A cook on Sorin's estate
- A maid on Sorin's estate
- A security guard on Sorin's estate
The Seagull (Russian Чайка / Chaika ) is a drama by Anton Chekhov in the year 1895.
Content
Chekhov's plays in the country in Tsarist Russia the turn of the century ( 19th/20th. Century). In terrible boredom guests to desolate a country estate to each other: you go with little jabs on the nerves and make you look so life hell.
The son of an actress, Konstantin Gavrilovic Treplev want to be a writer and wrote a small theater piece to be played to the guests in the evening on an improvised stage. The main role is played by his lover and muse Nina. However Treplev suffers from the constant nagging of his mother, who places his writing talent and his life in question. In addition, she has a boyfriend, Boris Alekseevic Trigorin, who is also and already very successful writer. This Trigorin it leads to again and again when they tried to weaken Treplevs confidence in himself and his work. During the performance of Treplevs piece it finally comes to a head, mother and son quarreled ... More and more shows that Nina feels attracted to Trigorin, was denied to its charm and its success, the Treplev so far. Leave as Treplevs mother and Trigorin, to go back to Moscow, leaving Nina Treplev and joins Trigorin to henceforth as an actress by his side.
Years pass, and Treplev is now a successful, but lonely writer. Unexpectedly appeared Nina again. Has disappointed you leave Trigorin. They only had a little success as an actress, and life in Moscow have imagined otherwise. It is the attempt to realize their dreams, failed. However, she does not want to return to Treplev and leaves him again. Treplev member has not achieved the desired success as a writer, had involuntarily fail as a human being but in reality, eventually shoots.
Creation and first performances
Chekhov begins in October 1895, the work on the seagull and finished the piece in December. He writes to his publisher Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin: "Second, imagine, I write on a piece, I will probably not finish before the end of November. I do not write without pleasure, though I am undone me terribly to the conditions of the stage. A comedy, three women's roles, six male roles, four acts, a landscape (view of a lake ); many conversations about literature, little action, a Pud love. "In October 1896, he shall deliver to the publisher the manuscript for a book edition.
In the premiere on 17 October 1896 in the Alexandrinskij Teatr in Saint Petersburg Vera Komissarzhevskaya played the role of Nina. The premiere will be a spectacular failure. Chekhov versa frustrated back to his estate in Melikhovo. On November 20, 1896, he writes: "Yes, my seagull had in Petersburg, at presentation, a huge failure. The theater was breathing wickedness, the air was explosive with hatred, and I flew - obeying the laws of physics -. Petersburg from them like a bomb "
In the same year he learns, however, the director and theater reformer Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky know. Together with the director and dramaturge Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich - Danchenko, Stanislavsky founded the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898, where he is all pieces later Chekhov's premiere. The Art Theatre had set itself the task to reform the art of acting. Instead of declamation and Star Theatre Stanislavsky put on the empathy of the actor in the role, in order to achieve maximum truthfulness. The pieces of the then little-known Chekhov fit into the artistic concept. Thus, Nemirovich -Danchenko asked in May 1898, the revised Chekhov version of the gull for a performance at the Art Theatre, which was an overwhelming success for the theater and for Chekhov .. Olga Knipper played the Arcadina, Stanislavsky to Trigorin and Vsevolod Meyerhold to Treplev. The theater was from then on as a seagull logo.
Stanislavsky was a major supporter of Chekhov's drama and reasonable - not least because of the numerous concert tours of the Art Theatre - the world fame of the poet. Chekhov himself felt Stanislavski's interpretations of his plays as ambivalent. Stanislavsky staged them as melancholy " mood dramas ", what the intentions of Chekhov did not meet. A letter to Alexander Tikhonov is this: " You say that you have been crying about my plays. You are not the only one. In addition I have it but not written. Stanislavsky was the one who made them so maudlin. I wanted something completely different. I wanted to say simple and honest: would you rather be, see just how bad and boring lead your life "!
Chekhov 's The Seagull expressly designated as a comedy to already be prevented by this genre name a sentimental point of view. The theater critic Gerhard Maier Stadel wrote about the piece: " The Seagull ' is a comedy journey into the heart of darkness. The trash floats: all very easy, only hinted at, sketched, but in frost colors, icy exactly "In fact, the piece is not a" pure " comedy, but thrives on constant breaks between comic and tragic moments, between mundane processes and a sophisticated discourse on. art, between tragic failure of lifestyles and ridiculous self-stylization.
The German premiere was on November 1, 1902 Lobe -Theater in Wroclaw based on a translation of Vladimir Czumikow.
Today's performance practice
The Seagull is still one of the most frequently appearing on the board of the German playhouses pieces. The production by Luc Bondy in 2000 for the Vienna Festival with Gert Voss, Jutta Lampe, Johanna Wokalek and August Diehl at the Burgtheater Vienna received three Nestroy theater prices.