The Seagull - Hardcover

Praise for Tom Stoppard and The Seagull

"Remains utterly faithful to the original while giving it the lightest dusting of [Stoppard's] own brisk wit . . . A play that might have been written a hundred days instead of a hundred years ago."--New York Times

"Stoppard . . . remains faithful to the humor that Chekhov intended to convey amid all the pathos."--Chicago Tribune

"The determined folks camping out every night to land tickets [to The Seagull] are not likely to go home disgruntled after an audience with this famously feathered creature . . . Robustly funny and pleasingly fluid."--Charles Isherwood, Variety

"[Stoppard is] one of the greatest living dramatic playwrights in the Western world."--San Francisco Chronicle

"The English-speaking world's brainiest playwright."--Wall Street Journal

"Stoppard's recent translation of The Seagull has given us the achingly sad and escapably tragic world that the great Russian playwright envisioned. The work overtakes us . . . Emotions flow like tears."--New York Daily News

"Consistently funny, a sharply observed human comedy of crisscrossing desires, out of which tragedy emerges as an accidental surprise. The translation by Tom Stoppard . . . never sacrifices pungent immediacy to the fetish of literal accuracy . . . Done well, Chekhov never tires."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Anyone blanching at the thought of ingenious Stoppardian word games in Chekhov's bucolic setting . . . may be surprised . . . A fine, faithful translation . . . Stripped to its bare essentials, The Seagull . . . is a remarkably modern play that treads in uncharted psychological minefields . . . An enormous amount to chew on. It's a brilliant portrait, painted with studied detachment."--CurtainUp

"If this show ever went to an open run in the park, the aforementioned planetarium would probably have to file for bankruptcy . . . one of the iconic Chekhov's undisputed classics . . . The Seagull debuted at the Moscow Art Theater over 100 years ago, launching a move toward naturalism that influenced modern theater and film in more ways than we can imagine."--TheaterMania

A group of friends and relations gather at a country estate to see the first performance of an experimental play, written and staged by the young man of the house, Konstantin. Among the audience are Konstantin's mother, the actress Arkadina, and her lover, the famous novelist Trigorin. Their glamorous presence not only disrupts the performance but soon takes on a more profound significance for the lives of all those present. The Seagull has always been a favourite among Chekhov's plays. It was in fact his first success - and the first success for Stanislavski, who directed and acted in it - though the first ever production of the play had been a disaster.