Artistic Freedom Curtailed Everywhere
“He said let’s make a baby. You said Let’s make A Seagull.”
Nico
To the readers of this review, I must apologise: I do not speak or understand Russian, so my impressions are based solely on what I saw and the feelings I took from the play.
The production is loosely based on Chekhov’s The Seagull, first performed in 1896. Act 1 opens in Moscow in 2022, where a theatre company is rehearsing for the play’s imminent opening. The red curtain parts, and the MC, a man in a red velvet jacket (Andrey Burkovskiy) steps forward to briefly explain the story of The Seagull in a mixture of English and Russian. Burkovskiy’s imitations of the cry of the seagull with giant flapping wings are memorable.
When the curtain fully opens, we see a group of actors posed as if in a still-life scene, except that some cast members are fanning the main performers with white plastic bags on short poles. Behind them hangs a large plastic sheet, nearly stage-wide, covered in unclear symbols. This device is used repeatedly throughout the play and the flying plastic presumably is a seagull theme.
We are introduced to Kon (Daniel Boyd) a young, enthusiastic director who struggles to motivate the cast, “like herding cats.” The lead actor is his mother Olga (Ingeborga Dapkunaite, whom English audiences will have seen in The Bridge) who also happens to be his strongest supporter and influences the authorities.
It is impossible to review this play without addressing its politics. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The cast in this play is always under the watchful eye of the authorities: to express a contrary view risks “re-education” and being forced to sign and publicly read out a denunciation of one’s own beliefs.
Kon dreams of going to Broadway, where he believes he can direct as he wants. At the end of Act 1, he leaves for America. At this point, I sensed the audience struggling to make sense of what they were watching. After all, the entire piece is a surrealist interpretation of The Seagull, not a straightforward retelling.
Act 2 opens with an announcer promising more English, as the setting has shifted to New York. This certainly helped my understanding. Yet the play also critiques American theatre: when a producer praises Kon’s talent and promises him work on Broadway, what he really means is “no chance.” Here Kon meets Nico (Stella Baker) a young actress and his love interest whom he casts as Nina in The Seagull.
Burkovskiy trained at the Moscow Arts Theatre where the first act is set and takes on three roles, as the MC, the influential Yuri in Moscow and a theatre entrepreneur, Barry in New York. Barry appears to be backing Kon and his ideas but instead, Kon ends up directing an interpretation of The Three Little Pigs in a church basement off-off-off-Broadway, three years later, and worse loses his girlfriend to another. Back in Moscow there is bad news about Anton (Elan Zafir) a theatre comrade of Kon’s who spoke his mind but didn’t leave for America.
The sets have detail including a collection of landmark buildings. Two dressing table sets are either side of the main stage.
The play runs nearly two and a half hours with an interval. Because I could not understand the Russian and because the disjointed scenes lacked clear linear development, I found it difficult to connect with. Cutting an hour might help, but only slightly.
Malcolm Beckett has been reviewing theatre since 2017
Production Notes
SEAGULL True Story
Created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov
Written by Eli Rarey
Cast
Starring:
Stella Baker
Daniel Boyd
Andrey Burkovskiy
Ingeborga Dapkunaite
Ohad Mazor
Myles J. McCabe
Quentin Lee Moore
Keshet Pratt
Shukhrat Turdikhodjev
Elan Zafir
Creatives
Director: Alexander Molochnikov
Set Designer: Alexander Shishkin
Costume Designer: Kristina Kharlashkina
Lighting Designer: Brian H Scott, Sam Saliba, Alex Musgrave
Choreographer: Ohad Mazor
Composer: Fedor Zhuravlev
Information
Running Time: Two hours 30 minutes including an interval
Booking to 12th October 2025
Theatre:
Marylebone Theatre
Website:
marylebonetheatre.com
Tube: Baker Street
Reviewed by
Malcolm Beckett
at the
Marylebone Theatre
on 9th September 2025