Seagull: True Story review – Putin’s war overshadows a heroically meta staging of Chekhov

Marylebone theatre, LondonRussian director Alexander Molochnikov’s play within a play raises vital questions about the cost and creativity of exile but is undone by its own clevernessThis is a play about the making of a play in a time of war. The latter is Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, and a fictional director, based on a real-life director, is producing it when Russia declares war on Ukraine. If that sounds like meta leaps within somersaults, Russian director Alexander Molochnikov does a heroic job of making it enjoyable, if antic.It begins with rehearsals at the Moscow Art theatre and travels to New York where fictional director Kon (Daniel Boyd), loosely based on Molochnikov, lives in exile after his public criticism of Putin’s war. Continue reading...

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