The Seagull at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh – review

This new production of Chekhov’s The Seagull from Edinburgh’s Lyceum is a significant moment for the theatre, as it marks the first production by James Brining, the company’s new artistic director. On the one hand, he plays it fairly safe, as the costumes place us firmly in 19th-century Russia in the country house of an upper-class family. However, Colin Richmond’s sets are faded, browned and a little sad, hinting that this family has fallen on hard times.

Brining has pushed the boat out for his first show by assembling a cast of “weel-kent” Lyceum faces and placing at its centre a well-established actress making her Lyceum debut. He was right to do so, because Caroline Quentin’s Arkadina is gripping to watch. Like the actress she portrays, she grabs the attention the second she walks on stage, and she inhabits the character’s contradictory whims and flourishes with such confidence that you don’t want to take your eyes off her. Her Arkadina is histrionic, brittle, contradictory and selfish, a character driven to extremes who attains quasi-tragic heights during the confrontations of the third act. Both Quentin and Arkadina are always performing, but Quentin’s performance hints at the insecurities and superficialities that lie just below Arkadina’s exterior. In a word, she’s riveting.

The younger characters? Less so. Lorn Macdonald’s Konstantin is a little wooden next to her. Sure, he’s dominated by his mother, and the dynamic of their relationship drives so much of the play forwards, but in the preview that I saw, Macdonald never sounds like he is doing anything other than reciting a script, and there is rarely any sense of spontaneity or being on the wing.

Harmony Rose-Bremner has similar problems: her Nina is a character driven to extremes, entertainingly so in the play-within-a-play of act one, but her development in the middle acts is unconvincing, and all of her emotions lie on the surface level, with a melodramatic turn in the final act. Thus, the key scene between Konstantin and Nina in the finale feels unduly long and overwrought.

There’s consolation from the rest of the cast, including Dyfan Dwyfor’s quietly rakish Trigorin, Steven McNicoll’s blustering Shamrayev and Forbes Masson’s unobtrusively nasty Dr Dorn.

Brining’s biggest success is in his direction of the interactions, be it the creeping awkwardness of the crowd scenes or the deepening sexual tension in the love triangles. He allows the play’s sense of perpetual frustration to unfold naturally, whether it’s about the depths of love or the silliness of taking the horses out for the afternoon. He’s helped by Mike Poulton’s new adaptation, which brings immediacy but throws in some distracting Scottishisms that jar.

So there are problems, but it’s worth seeing for Quentin, whose Arkadina is both shallow and deep, and very memorable.