The Seagull (Student Editions)

by Anton Chekhov (Author), Anton Chekhov (Author)

• New

  Student Edition
  2002

  $14.72

  A Methuen Student Edition of Chekhov's classic play in Michael Frayn's acclaimed translation 'The play has been flooded with light, like a room with the curtains drawn back' John Peter, Sunday Times'The direct simplicity of this new translation ...uncovers not only the nerve endings of Chekhov's restless malcontents but also their comic absurdities. It is, as he always intended, actually funny ...' Jack Tinker, Daily MailWhen it opened in St Petersburg in 1896, The Seagull survived only five performances after a disastrous first night. Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love .Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.31

  The Seagull, a spectacular failure on its first appearance, was the play which, on its second, established Anton Chekhov as an important and revolutionary dramatist. Here, amid 'the weariness of life in the country', the famous actress Arkadina presides over a household riven with desperate love, with dreams of success and dread of failure. It is her son, Konstantin, who one day shoots a seagull; it is the novelist, Trigorin, who will one day write the story of the seagull so casually killled; but it is Nina, 'the seagull' herself, whose life to come will rewrite the story.Tom Stoppard made this English version for the Peter Hall Company at the Old Vic (Spring 1997), and added an introduction which indicates some of the problems translators have faced since the first English Seagull in 1909.

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $18.43

  The Seagull centers on the unsuccessful playwright Konstantin and his actress girlfriend Nina. When Nina falls in love with the successful novelist Trigorin, Konstantin kills a seagull and places it at her feet.