THE SEAGULL AS AN ALBATROSS
At over two hours, it’s almost as long as its source. So it’s a good thing that Stupid Fucking Bird is more than a parody or it would soon lose its welcome. Aaron Posner’s reductionist, presentational semi-musical and meta-theatrical updating of Chekhov’s The Seagull, a drama where one generation frustrates the artistic ambitions of the next, is explicit where Chekhov was impressionistic. It’s scatological and soap-operatic rather than merely melancholic and quietly desperate. The result is a twisted homage that honors Chekhov more in the breach than the observance.
Seen over four declining years, these six characters (in search of an author) grind each other down on the shore of a Russian lake. They’re nothing if not caustically contemporary, their angst accessible and their subtexts very, very outspoken. Jonathan L. Green’s forensic staging, a Midwest premiere by Sideshow Theatre Company, leaves no motivation unstated, no cri de coeur quietly introspective, no metaphor undone to death. The title says it all.
They’re also ferociously funny, though often the joke is on the audience for finding so much pleasure in their pain. As always, everyone in this hothouse is in unrequited love with the wrong person. Posner’s virtual narrator is a kind of Russian Holden Caulfield, great at detecting bullshit and phoniness, except in himself: A young, thwarted playwright of “site-specific performance art” who dreams of a new theater only to learn everything’s been said (and better than he writes), Con (Nate Whelden) is in sick love with flaky actress Nina (Nina O’Keefe, talk about life imitating art and also recalling Glenda Jackson): Nina’s hopes for success on stage are as doomed as Con’s. She falls for the successful writer and user Trig (Cody Proctor) who adores Con’s cold and narcissistic mother, famous actress Emma (Stacy Stoltz). “In mourning for my life,” bitterly sardonic Mash (Katy Carolina Collins) sulks and sings solos, pining for indifferent Con. This pouty girl is hopelessly worshiped by nice-guy Dev (Matt Fletcher), the “reality principle” in this dacha of fools. Finally, in love with his irretrievable past, Sorn (Norm Woodel) is a disappointed doctor about to turn 60 who craves another chance at being 27.
As in the original, nobody moves in this claustrophobic clusterfuck without hurting someone else. The young slacker dreamers, whether they’re talentless drones or diamonds in the rough, suffer most—and suffering, of course, is the grist that fuels the mills of Chekhov.
Dispensing with the Russian master’s all-revealing small talk, Posner goes for instant meltdowns, anguished apostrophes, and manic monologues. In overlapping choruses, the characters testify to their sheer neediness—for love, success, or just connections. Con in particular regularly steps out of the play (which he’s written as a long suicide note) to interrogate the audience and to wonder whether theater can make a difference. “Nothing real has actually happened” and “No one’s life has been changed.” Wrongly assuming that Chekhov left his dark comedy unfinished, Posner throws in an irrelevant epilogue that exposes the later lives of the characters as just as empty, self-pitying, and miserable as the play’s “present.”
It’s easy to get the point and to get the point, then resent how often we’re meant to get it again. The most intriguing element in this experiment is the blowback to the audience itself. This comedy bites back and turns on its crowd. Slowly the shocks of recognition begin to dry up the mocking cackles of audience members insistent on proving they’re in on the jokes.
One of Mash’s Goth-like musical laments says it all: “All too much and not enough.”
photos by Jonathan L. Green
Stupid Fucking Bird
Sideshow Theatre Company
Victory Gardens, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.
Thurs-Sat at 7:30; Sun at 3:00
scheduled to end on September 21, 2014
remounts July 23-August 30, 2015
for tickets, call 773.871.3000 or visit Victory Gardens
(Click here for Stage and Cinema‘s review of Stupid Fucking Bird in Los Angeles.)
for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago