Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull reversioned by David Hare
seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 13 August 2016
Anton Chekhov's three early plays - the first of which was not performed in his lifetime - were presented last year at the Chichester Festival as a unified insight into the dramatist's development. Most of the original cast have been reassembled to present the plays in London this summer. The three plays were directed by Jonathan Kent and the sets - variations on Russian country estates - were designed by Tom Pye.
In many ways the best way to appreciate this ambitious undertaking is to see all three plays on the same day. Patterns and themes emerge - there are references to Hamlet in each play; there is a significant part for a doctor in each play, though the three doctors are utterly different in style and personality; there is an idealistic but frustrated young man in each, colliding with an idealistic and frustrated young woman with painful consequences; surrounding the main characters are an assortment of hangers-on, older but not necessarily wiser relatives who are part of a wider and often stifling society. But the fascination of all this is that though the situations may appear similar in bald summary, the tone of each play, and the way the characters interact (or fail to interact) in each, makes for a wide and rich spectrum of human behaviour. Chekhov is revealed to be the master of social comedy and romantic melodrama just as much as his more well-known bittersweet examination of thwarted idealism and crippling ennui.
