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Off-Broadway's Seagull, With O'Toole, Wiest and Cumming, Opens
By Kenneth Jones
13 Mar 2008
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Bill Christ and Annette O'Toole (top); David Rasche and John Christopher Jones
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| photo by Joan Marcus | The creative souls of Chekhov's The Seagull — including Dianne Wiest's diva actress-mother Arkadina and Alan Cumming's writer Trigorin — find their place in the sun March 13 with the opening of the Classic Stage Company's new production.
Performances at the Off-Broadway troupe's East Village home began Feb. 20.
Viacheslav Dolgachev directs the Paul Schmidt translation of the drama about a family in the arts (and the people in their orbit). The extended run continues to April 13.
The physical world of the classic is created by scenic designer and Tony Award winner Santo Loquasto (Glengarry Glen Ross, Cafe Crown).
Two-time Oscar winner Wiest ("Bullets Over Broadway," "Hannah and Her Sisters") plays actress Irina Arkadina, and Tony winner Cumming (Cabaret) is writer Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin in the Russian masterpiece about creative people and their egos, appetites — and their selfishness.
The cast also includes Kelli Garner (as young actress Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya), Ryan O'Nan (as Arkadina's playwright son, Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev), Annette O'Toole (as Paulina Andryevna), David Rasche (as Yevgeny Sergeyevich Dorn), John Christopher Jones (as Pyotr Nikolayevich Sorin), Bill Christ (as Ilya Shamrayev), Ryan Homchick (as Yakov), Greg Keller (as Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko) and Marjan Neshat (as Masha).
Costumes are by Suzy Benzinger, lighting is by Tony Award winner Brian MacDevitt and hair design is by Paul Huntley.
"Written in 1896, The Seagull is widely regarded as Chekhov's first masterpiece, subtly dissecting the affairs of the heart and the demands of a life in the arts, while balancing the comic, the lyric and the tragic in a manner that has become the hallmark of his work," according to CSC.
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Garner appeared Off-Broadway in Dog Sees God at the Century Center. Her film roles include "Lars and the Real Girl," "The Aviator" and "Love, Liza," among others.
O'Toole has appeared in such films as "Cat People," "One On One," "48 Hours" opposite Nick Nolte and "Superman III," and was Martha Kent on the TV series "Smallville." For HBO, she appeared in "Vanities."
Rasche is a New York stage veteran whose credits include Broadway's Speed the Plow, Lunch Hour, Loose Ends, Shadow Box and Getting and Spending and Off-Broadway's Edmond at the Atlantic, Moonlight and Magnolias and Regrets Only at Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Country Girl at the Roundabout, among many others.
Jones' New York theatre credits include Otherwise Engaged, Hurlyburly, Democracy, The Iceman Cometh, Engaged and Golden Child, among others.
The Seagull will be performed Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2 and 8 PM and Sundays at 3 PM. For tickets and information visit www.classicstage.org or call (866) 811-4111, or (212) 352-3101, or visit the CSC box office at 136 East 13th Street.
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The cast of The Seagull.
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| photo by Joan Marcus |
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