SEAGULL INTERRUPTED
An extraordinarily well-written play—and a perfect choice for the Hollywood Fringe—Steven Dietz’s 75-minute one-act, The Nina Variations, takes the final scene of Chekhov’s The Seagull—that charged, heartbreaking reunion between Nina and Treplev—and explodes it into 43 compact riffs, each a new lens on longing. Dietz isn’t attempting parody or pastiche; instead, he digs into the obsessive ache of unrequited love, rewriting and reconfiguring the scene with the fury of someone who can’t let go. Some versions are ironic, others tender or hostile, even absurd—but together they form a fractured mirror of two people caught in the echo chamber of memory and missed chances.
What makes the play sing is its elasticity—it’s not just a showcase for Chekhov obsessives, but a theatrical duet that demands emotional and physical range. At the Broadwater Studio under Richard Kenyon‘s thoughtful direction, the piece crackles with intimacy and theatrical danger, with James Carter Montgomery and Natalie Valentine constantly shifting tone, tactic, and temperature. At its core, The Nina Variations is less about plot than about obsession as a kind of performance art: the ways we rewrite, relive, and re-stage the past to make sense of it—or fail to. It’s not just a meditation on a great play; it’s a quiet howl at the impossibility of closure.
The Nina Variations
The Broadwater (Studio), 1078 Lillian Way
part of The Hollywood Fringe Festival
75 minutes; ends on June 25, 2025
for tickets ($15), visit Nina Variations
