A LAKESIDE ESTATE OF ART,
AMBITION, & UNREQUITED LOVE

A richly acted, visually striking Seagull
that finally delivers a fully realized Nina

A gorgeous and enormous Arcadian painting of a lake, covering almost the entire back wall, is the first thing you notice as you walk into the Edge Off-Broadway Theatre. This splendid reproduction of Wood Lake by Isaac Levitan was painted by scenic charge artist Mia Irwin and it serves as a focal point for Red Theater’s new production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. The rest of the stage is mostly bare. While the audience murmurs in anticipation, a couple of stagehands start moving more furniture into the space. It takes a few beats to realize that with no warning or announcement, or even a dimming of the lights, the play has begun—an homage to Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street, maybe? (given how much I adore that movie adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, I have decided that it is an homage). The two men are aspiring playwright Konstantin and Yakov, one of the workmen on the estate; Yakov is played by Bobby Bowman, who is hilarious in a near-wordless part, and his already excellent performance—just a few minutes into what is a throwaway role—bodes well for what is to come.

Jamie Herb as Nina, Kason Chesky as Kostya

Konstantin (Kason Chesky) is putting on a play on the lawn of the estate. His audience comprises his uncle Sorin (Chuck Munro) the estate owner, his mother Irina Arkadina (Anne Sheridan Smith), an actress on the Russian stage, her lover Trigorin (Josh Razavi) who writes short stories for a living, and assorted friends of the family and members of the staff, including Masha (Magdalena Dalzell) the chronically depressed daughter of the estate manager, her besotted lover, a poor school teacher Semyon (Ben Murphy), and a wry, coolly observant doctor, Dorn (Chris Hainsworth). The star of Konstantin’s symbolic—and frankly awful—play is Nina (Jami Herb), the daughter of a rich neighbor, and he is both excited and terrified to present this work starring the love of his life to his famous actress mother.

And then it all goes wrong for poor Kostya.

Ben Murphy as Medvedenko

The first of Chekhov’s four major plays, The Seagull, was unsuccessful when it was first produced in 1896. That would change in just two years. Written as a comedy, it was nevertheless performed as high drama for decades thanks to its second production directed by the legendary Stanislavski, which was such a colossal hit that the play was cemented as a tragedy in the public imagination. The 2000s have seen several attempts to perform Chekhov comedies as he intended: my personal favorite being Kimberly Senior’s delightful production of The Cherry Orchard at Strawdog in 2009. Red Theater’s Seagull splits the difference, elevating the comic aspects of the play, especially with the supporting characters and Sheridan’s performance (more on this later) but maintaining the overall tone of a tragedy.

I must say it works rather well.

Anton Chekhov is one of my favorite playwrights and The Seagull is one of my two favorite plays from his oeuvre (the other being Uncle Vanya). Over the years, I have watched dozens of productions in multiple languages, seen two movie adaptations, as well as several “inspired by” shows. Until this production, all of them had two things in common:

I had never seen a portrayal of Irina Arkadina that did not work.
I had never seen a portrayal of Nina Zarechnaya that did.

Magdalena Dalzell as Masha, Josh Razavi as Trigorin

Irina Arkadina is one of the greatest roles ever written for an actor. A monstrous narcissist and terrible parent, she is a mass of contradictions and vanity, reveling in her power to control the people around her. Her cruelty can be blithe—her faux-wounded “what did I say?” when her son storms off in tears after she’s casually eviscerated his play for her own amusement—or laser-focused, as when she counters Kostya’s insult of “Has-been” with a devastating, “Never-will-be!” Anne Sheridan Smith sinks her teeth into the part with great relish, elegantly transitioning between viciousness, flirtatiousness, and mock concern for her son’s welfare, sometimes within the same scene; there have been arguments made that somewhere inside Irina there is a kernel of genuine affection for her son. I’ve never agreed. The only genuine affection Irina has is for herself. Sheridan Smith is also a deft comedic talent, her comic timing most overtly on display in a scene where Trigorin begs her to release him so he can be with Nina. The scene is usually played for pathos but here Irina’s quasi-seduction is firmly in the comedy realm and Sheridan Smith is hilarious, switching it on and off as the mood requires, and then briskly resetting once she’s gotten what she wants. The actor is having a blast and her mood is contagious. It is a wonderful performance. There is a reason why actors love playing actors.

Anne Sheridan Smith as Arkadina, Kason Chesky as Kostya

Nina Zarechnaya on the other hand always seems to fox the actor playing her. My personal theory as to why: the character is, to put it mildly, not too bright. Her decisions may drive the play forward, but they are entirely instinctual and self-serving but not calculating. She is, in other words, pure id wrought in human form. I’m not quite sure how but Jamie Herb seems to have found a way to make Nina work. Bearing a startling resemblance to a young Jane Adams—even her voice and inflections are similar—Herb makes for a luminous, starry-eyed ingénue. Naive, trusting, and seduced by glamour, her idealization and eventual lust for Trigorin make perfect sense. Crucially, she is the only character who does not evolve through the events in the play. She gets older, but no wiser, and because her entire personality and life-view is built around her image of Trigorin, it is the one self-induced delusion that she holds onto at all costs. And it all works.

Anne Sheridan Smith as Arkadina, Josh Razavi as Trigorin

Josh Razavi’s Trigorin is my sole complaint in the production. It’s not that the performance is weak—he’s actually quite good, it’s that he tips his hand far too early. Trigorin is as callous and narcissistic as Irina, but it is important for the audience to not realize that right off the bat. A case in point would be his first act scenes with Nina; Trigorin’s desire for her is so nakedly solipsistic that it presages the events of the second act.

I am well over a thousand words into this review, and we still have not gotten to Masha, Konstantin, or Semyon. That is what happens in a play with so many great characters. With my apologies to the individual actors, I must cheat and simply say that the entire supporting cast is uniformly excellent.

Anne Sheridan Smith as Arkadina, Joe Zarrow as Shamraev, Magdalena Dalzell
as Masha, Chris Hainsworth as Dorn, Ana Ortiz-Monasterio Draa as Polina

Lest you think that it is all about the actors—cue any actor: of course, it is—the production staff are in top form as well. Kate Schnetzer’s sharp sound design incorporates a beautiful piano score by Jonathan Hannau that cuts in and out with impeccable timing. Gorgeous giant painting aside, there’s cleverness involved in Hunter Cole’s scenic design that builds in complexity and recedes depending on the needs of the scene, using both actors and backstage staff to place-set. One of my favorite scenes beautifully straddles the on- and off-stage worlds: as Trigorin and Nina kiss, the music swells and Brenden Marble’s lighting narrows in on the couple, creating a soft spot, with light spilling over into the shadows where the cast and crew rearrange the set in precisely choreographed movements. The overall effect is enchanting and altogether marvelous.

Kason Chesky as Kostya, Jamie Herb as Nina

Ian Maryfield, whose direction is as unobtrusive as it is confident, ought to be proud.

Ultimately, for me, this production all comes back to Nina. Who would have thought that decades after a short story—Antagonists, also published under the title Enemies—in a high school text book would spark a lifelong adoration of the works of Anton Chekhov, I would encounter my first fully realized Nina Zarechnaya in a small box theater on a side street in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood.

Yes, I realize that previous sentence makes me out to be an insufferable snoot. Shut up.

Just go watch the damn play.

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photos by Faith Decker, Wannabe Studio Photo
poster art by Skyler Simpson

The Seagull
Red Theater
The Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave
Mon & Thurs-Sat at 7:30;
ends on March 15, 2025
for tickets ($10-$50), visit Red Theater

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

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