The Seagull, which debuts Feb. 19 at Neely Auditorium at Vanderbilt University, explores a young artist‘s struggle as he searches for new forms to express truth, a struggle thwarted by fractured domesticity and self-doubt.
Written in 1895 and first produced in 1896, The Seagull dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the ingénue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplyov, and the famous middlebrow story writer Trigorin.
“In this play, Chekhov equates an artist‘s addictive emotional highs and devastating lows to the feelings of love, passion, and possession – themes interesting to all of humanity but, perhaps, especially to those youthful practitioners and audiences who are in the immediate center of the tumultuous process of making choices, artistic or otherwise – choices which will haunt them forever,” says the play‘s director Terryl Hallquist, associate professor of theater.
The Seagull is a play about a very human tendency to reject love that is freely given and seek it where it is withheld.
The Seagull will be performed at 8 p.m. Feb. 19, 20, 25, 26, 27 and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 21. Admission is $10 for the general public, $7 for graduate and professional students and free for undergraduates with Vanderbilt identification. Tickets may be reserved by calling (615) 322-2404.
For more information about the 2009-2010 Vanderbilt Theatre Season, visit http://vanderbilt.edu/theatre/currentseason.
Media contact: Missy Pankake, (615) 322-NEWS
missy.pankake@vanderbilt.edu