Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull has seen countless interpretations on London stages, but few have arrived with the high-wattage anticipation of the Barbican’s new revival directed by Thomas Ostermeier and headlined by Cate Blanchett.
Ostermeier, the revered artistic director of Berlin’s Schaubühne, makes his UK directorial debut here, and his collaboration with playwright Duncan Macmillan yields a Seagull that is boldly contemporary and self-referential. It’s a coup to have this German auteur in London – almost as much of a coup as landing Blanchett herself – and the result is a production that delights in deconstructing both Chekhov and the very idea of a star-studded West End play staged within the City of London.
From its opening moments, Ostermeier’s Seagull signals that it will play by its own rules. The character Medvedenko (played by Zachary Hart) bounds onstage and cheekily asks the audience, “Who’s up for a bit of Chekhov?” – instantly shattering the fourth wall. In lieu of the play’s usual genteel lakeside prologue, he strums an electric guitar and belts out Billy Bragg’s punk-folk anthem The Milkman of Human Kindness. It’s a bracing, tongue-in-cheek introduction that announces this production’s meta-theatrical flair. Throughout the evening, performers slip out of their roles to address the audience or comment on the action, unabashedly reminding us that we’re watching a play. At one point, the house lights even come up as Tom Burke’s Trigorin turns to the audience and pointedly inquires why we are here, blurring the line between Chekhov’s world and our own.
Macmillan’s adaptation is filled with sharp, witty updates that tether Chekhov’s 19th-century world to the 21st. The young writer Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee) now stages an avant-garde performance art piece replete with virtual reality headsets, strobe lights, and wire rigging – which his mother, Blanchett’s Arkadina, scoffs at as a “knock-off Cirque du Soleil”. Konstantin also hurls barbs at the artistic establishment, at one point bitterly declaring that no cultural funding should go to anyone over 40. Meanwhile, the smugly successful novelist Trigorin becomes a figure of satire too: Konstantin dismisses Trigorin’s best-sellers as “airport books”, a withering put-down that provokes knowing laughter from the audience. These references earn big laughs, but they also serve a purpose – they highlight the play’s central tension between youthful avant-garde ambition and the jaded complacency of the older generation.
For all its irreverence, Ostermeier’s vision finds the emotional core of The Seagull. The production’s design grounds the characters in a liminal, almost dreamlike space: set designer Magda Willi has transformed the stage into a towering thicket of reeds that sway and rustle as characters approach, then swallow them into darkness as they exit. This evocative staging suggests the countryside estate as a kind of spiritual limbo, a place where these characters’ hopes and regrets intermingle. Within this space, the production balances broad comedy with moments of aching poignancy. Ostermeier has famously directed The Seagull multiple times and feels no reverence for Chekhov’s text, treating it instead as a playground for a great group of actors – and indeed, he grants his cast the freedom to find fresh, personal angles in their roles. The result is a lively three-hour performance that, while occasionally sprawling or indulgent, remains engaging because it’s anchored in truthful character moments.
Central to that success is Cate Blanchett’s tour-de-force turn as Irina Arkadina. At first, she portrays Arkadina – a fading stage actress terrified of irrelevance – as a hilarious send-up of theatrical diva tropes. With extravagant flourishes, eye-roll-inducing vanity, and razor-sharp timing, Blanchett wrings comedy from Arkadina’s every self-absorbed outburst. (Ostermeier even cheekily nods to Blanchett’s own superstar status by having Arkadina don rock-star attire and revel in the spotlight, as if aware that a real A-lister is playing her.) Yet Blanchett also lays bare Arkadina’s pathos. In one devastating scene, when Arkadina realises she is losing her lover Trigorin to the young Nina, Blanchett rips off her character’s mask of bravado. Her voice cracks, her poise crumbles, and this gloriously confident woman is suddenly a picture of raw desperation, begging not to be abandoned. It’s a jarring but profoundly human moment – as if the artifice of the production falls away, leaving genuine heartbreak that hits the audience hard.
Blanchett may command the spotlight, but this Seagull is far from a one-woman show. Ostermeier assembles an exceptionally strong ensemble, and each gets a chance to shine.
As Trigorin, Tom Burke combines charm with a detached inscrutability, making the celebrated writer both attractive and faintly aloof – one understands why Arkadina clings to him, even as he scarcely notices her antics.
Emma Corrin brings a luminous, openhearted quality to Nina, the ingénue dreaming of stardom. Corrin’s Nina starts with girlish idealism that gradually gives way to disillusionment, and her chemistry with Burke evolves from playful infatuation to something more poignant and painful.
Newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, in his stage debut as Konstantin, is all gangly intensity – his Konstantin broods at the margins, bristling at his elders’ cynicism while aching for validation.
Tanya Reynolds makes an impression as the gothically morose Masha, perpetually glued to an e-cigarette and deadpanning her misery, and Jason Watkins imbues the ailing Sorin with gentle humour and melancholy. It’s a Ostermeier’s actor-focused approach that ensures every character, even the typically sidelined ones, feels vivid and integral to the whole.
If there’s a drawback to this production, it’s that Ostermeier’s freewheeling, throw-everything-at-the-wall style can occasionally diffuse the play’s focus. The mash-up of metatheatrical comedy and Chekhovian drama has of the many ideas jostling onstage that don’t fully land or gel. Purists might find that the relentless self-awareness undercuts the tragedy’s earnest depth at times.
Yet even the production’s indulgences have a playful charm. When The Seagull turns into a satire of itself, it’s so deliberate and heartfelt that it feels less like mockery and more like a love-letter to theatre – acknowledging its absurdities while celebrating its power. And crucially, the emotional beats of Chekhov’s play are still delivered honestly. By the end, the laughter has dwindled and the final act’s sorrow is allowed to unfold without irony, reminding us that for all the clever trappings, these characters’ disappointments still cut deep.
Thomas Ostermeier’s Barbican production of The Seagull manages to honour the spirit of Chekhov even as it gleefully breaks the rules of how Chekhov “should” be done. It’s a bold, often thrilling interpretation that asks us to think about why we go to the theatre and what we seek from revivals of beloved classics. Chekhov’s meditation on art, fame, and unrequited love emerges here as something fresh and fiercely alive. For a theatre-savvy audience, seeing Cate Blanchett and company relish this material under Ostermeier’s iconoclastic direction is a rare treat – an evening that is by turns amusing, startling, and ultimately moving. In short, this Seagull soars.
until Sat 5 Apr 2025
