Red Theater’s The Seagull is here to remind us that Time is a Flat Circle

Anton Chekov, one of “The Russians” – greats of modern literature including Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, wrote four famous plays and hundreds of short stories before his early death at 44, while he was also a practicing physician, in case you weren’t feeling accomplished enough today. The Seagull was his first play, and its debut so disastrous he almost quit theater altogether, but in 1898, it was produced again in Moscow and a raging success, and it has confounded and enraged audiences ever since.

The Seagull tells the story of four main characters: the famous writer Boris Trigorin (a melancholy Josh Razavi), the ingenue Nina ( the buoyant Jamie Herb), the fading actress Irina Arkadina (narcissistic queen Anne Sheridan Smith), and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplyov, played with bruised, desperate intensity by Kason Chesky.

Famous actress Arkadina has come to visit her brother Sorin played loveably by Chuck Munro, a retired civil servant in ailing health. He’s also the de-facto guardian of her son, Treplyov, who she has little interest in. He’s made a small life for himself with his uncle, he’s an aspiring writer and adores his neighbor, the lovely Nina. Arkadina has brought along her most recent lover, the younger Trigorin, who is a successful writer. His fame and melancholy air is immediately attracting to impressionable Nina. Herb’s performance is innocent and joyful, her curiosity and big dreams spill out from her tangibly. Her infatuation sends Treplyov, who is already desperate for love and validation, into a tailspin of despair.

The cast is rounded out by Joe Zarrow as estate manager Shamraev, Ana Ortiz-Monasterio Draa as his wife and housekeeper Polina, Magdalena Dalzell as their sarcastic, unhappy alcoholic daughter Masha, Chris Hainsworth as Dr. Dorn, the only person in the house with any real stability, Ben Murphy as the humble, self-deprecating Medvedenko – who’s deeply in love with Masha, and Bobby Bowman as a delightfully grumpy Yakov.

As ever with Red, the scenic, light and sound design by Hunter Cole, Brenden Marble and Kate Schnetzer is well done, creating atmosphere and sense of place with carefully and sparsely placed strokes, the beautiful, room-sized painting of the lake front serves both as a suggestion of the outside, but also a reminder that the audience is engaging in artwork that is showing humanity back at itself.

What amazed me the most about this production was how little has changed from late 19^th Century Russia to modern American Life. Narcissistic parents, youthful dreams, the desperate, constant need for validation – none of this has changed, if fact, some if it has become ubiquitous. Anne Sheridan Smith’s performance as the aging actress Arkadina is sharp and pitch perfect. Arkadina clutches her desirability to men in a death grip. That, and the adoration of the crowds are the only things that matter. Her son’s health or happiness is a distant third.  Chesky’s Treplyov feels impossible young, his big brown eyes pools of neediness. Chekov kindly makes it clear that Treplyov is not without talent, but the deficits in his emotional being caused by the total lack of love and support ultimately can’t be overcome.

Watching the story play out of a young artist, toiling for recognition but also to make something new and authentic – while the older generation stops him at every turn, felt all to prescient. Several of the monologues from the older characters could have been made by my own Boomer relatives.

The Seagull shares many similarities with Hamlet, a Red Theater production from just a few years ago: there’s a lost young man, a delicate ingenue, inappropriate parental relationships and careless use of the powerless. Chekov had a sharp humor that can be easily missed among all the over-the-top tragedy. Luckily for us, director Ian Maryfield chooses the comedy in the first half. He uses Chris Hainsworth and Ben Murphy’s great comedic timing well. Hainsworth as the bemused straight man, and Murphy as the bumbling, self-deprecating doofus. Magdalena Dalzell is also perfectly dry – while sipping her ever-present flask. It’s a comedy of manners, but with a darkside.

Trigorin is often considered one of Chekov’s “best” male leads, and a difficult role. Razavi comes off as a rather insecure, easy going guy who just can’t say no. It would have been perhaps less of a shock if he had played Trigorin with a little more confidence and maybe would have sold why Nina found him so fascinating. But, as his duplicitousness is slowly revealed, you realize that this mopey dude is the very worst kind of bad guy – he thinks he’s a good guy, a victim of circumstance and irresistible women, and he is happy to pass the buck when things go south. Razavi’s harmless likeability is played to interesting affect here. His toxicity takes the audience by surprise. So too, does the sorry fate of Nina, and the unsurprising one of Masha and Treplyov.

It is a common observation of the play that young Treplyov is the Seagull – a creature destroyed by a man, simply because he can. This interpretation ignores the two young women in the play. Both Masha and Nina have very few choices, and both make a definitive choice, only to pay heavily for them after. Their lives are entirely at the mercy of the men they choose.  However, the only woman with any real power, Arkadina, also seeks validation and self-worth from men. That may actually be the point though. Each character in this story is desperate for recognition and validation, often from the one person they will never get it from. In today’s world of near-constant validation seeking, it could have been written yesterday, or sadly, tomorrow. For a sharp, funny, well produced evening, you won’t go wrong with this production.

Recommended

Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia

Presented at The Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave. February 14 – March 15, 2026

Tickets are available now at www.redtheater.org for $30, student rates are available

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.

The Actor’s Gymnasium Winter Circus is Aquí o Allá – A Circus Story, in association with La Vuelta Theater Lab

“Here, or there?” It’s a question most of us ask at least once a day. Aquí o Allá – A Circus Story, created and directed by Raquel Torre – asks this question for 75 minutes straight with dance, circus arts and sound. The association of La Vuelta Theater Lab with The Actors Gymnasium at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center in Evanston has produced a visual playground for a little family of misfit clowns to find a home.

The stage is a vaguely dystopian, forgotten alley in a large city. There are signs that warn not to feed the rats, and reminders for silence and rule following. In one corner, is a workstation for City Metronome 65 – run by a nameless city worker (Satya Chavez) with musical tendencies who appears to never leave, perhaps trapped by the monotony of life in the urban underbelly.

The Teen Ensemble of the Actors Gymnasium fills out the stage with worker drones who move strictly to a schedule. One of the best aspects of the Actors Gym is seeing these young artists work, learn and grow onstage, with near perfect timing and an underlying sense of excitement.

One day, our heroes, Jean Carlos Claudio, Kat Hoil, Kaitlyn Andrews, and Glenna Broderick stumble onto the stage, their worldly possessions in their hands and on their backs. In a land of immigrants, they don’t need lines to tell us what they are searching for, or even where they have come from. All we need to know is that they are together, and they are determined.

What follows is a playful interlude with exceptionally talented clowns. I had the pleasure of seeing Kaitlyn Andrews in last year’s Little Red, it was wonderful to see her growth as a performer. Her aerial dance on silks, a celebration of finally being able to call a new place home, is smoothly captivating. Kat Hoil plays a flamboyant, dramatic troublemaker and has quite an adventure trying to acquire a new pair of shoes. Glenna Broderick garnered the biggest gasps of the night with a breakneck run down a pole, winning the hearts of the audience but making no headway with the faceless, nameless denizens of the city they were hoping to call home. Jean Carlos Claudio, who I was lucky to see star in last year’s Memorabilia, plays a rather paternal, take charge character who ultimately has to fall back into the arms of his family to remember his own strength. Despite their charm, resourcefulness and warmth, the clowns lose nearly everything they have – until welcome comes from an unexpected place.

The music is all composed and performed live by Satya Chavez, who has a rich and powerful singing voice and an ability to make chaos sound orderly. In this tale, we are reminded that it is personal connection: the continued, ever hopeful reaching out across the barriers of language and difference, that carry us up and over the inevitable loss that haunts every life.  Watching circus artists use their bodies for storytelling and art is always an experience that inspires awe – with this crew, there is also pathos and ultimately, belonging.

Recommended

Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia

Not recommended for children under 5.

All performances are at Noyes Cultural Arts Center at 927 Noyes St., Evanston, IL.

Show dates are February 21 – March 22. Performances are Saturdays at 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM, and Sundays at 3:00 PM. Tickets start at $25 for adults and can be purchased online at www.actorsgymnasium.org/shows

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.

Bramble Theater Company gets wild with THE PETS

On October 18, 2011, the owner of Muskingum County Animal Farm, 62-year-old Terry Thompson, released 50 exotic animals into the Ohio countryside before taking his own life. To add to the tragedy, most of the animals were subsequently killed by local officials, as they were large predators. The public outcry led to new regulations around owning and housing exotic animals.

Playwright Dizzy Turek uses this tragedy as the often surreal, occasionally poignant and very funny backdrop for a story focused on each person’s desire to choose their own prison, and what the cost can be.

When the story begins, a handful of zoo animals find themselves unexpectedly free for the first time in their lives, surrounded by corn, highways and powerlines. The intimate Nest Theater at the Bramble is strung in little stuffies and the actors all wear a tail; a few have clothes in the palette of their animal self – but otherwise the stage is spare, with chairs and a few extra stuffies the only real props. While it might have been helpful to lean in a little more to their animal appearance, the actors do also make varying choices in terms of physicality and vocalizations to let the audience know what sort of animal they are, some more obvious than others.

The play focuses on three short story lines as they weave in and out of each other; first, the wild cats (a commanding Francis Miller, a lithe and sparkling Kylie Anderson and an expressive Capri Gehred-O’Connell) have an ongoing argument on what to do with their freedom, and whether, after years in front of a TV, they are more than their wild selves, second, a small, very religious monkey (an unhinged Suzy Krueckeberg) is desperately grateful to her wild monkey god to beablet to settle into an oak tree, and third, a young Jehova’s Witness (played charmingly by Alice Wu), wanders the road near the zoo, trying to fulfill her mission and being nudged lovingly and gently by a vision of St. Francis of Assisi to another mission entirely.

If it all sounds a bit wacky, it is. But much like Animal Farm, Zootopia, Charlotte’s Web, or any cartoon where an animal wears a top without pants, THE PETS uses the goofy, surreal personification of animals to explore issues that are at the heart of being human, or perhaps simply, being a person. Each of the characters is seeking connection, community and freedom – but, rather bleakly, it becomes clear that “freedom” never comes without a cost, and the best most of us can do is either take part in choosing our cage, or rage against the dying of the light – however briefly. As the animals careen through the new, big world they’ve found, or in the case of the young Jehovah’s Witness stumble awkwardly, new relationships are formed. For example, Alexander Attea, as what can only be described as a wolf-bro, is a musician and poet who finally finds a muse. Happily for everyone in the audience, the music that comes out of him is late 90’s alternative rock. Like the tiny, puppet birds on the edges of the room, I could not resist singing along to Third Eye Blind and Oasis, among others. Johnard Washington is a thoughtful and gentle bear who forges new and lasting friendships with several of the big cats he comes across. Haley Bolithon is the shy, sweet and angelic Baboon, who makes a new best friend and falls in love all in one day. Bolithon’s character has the least obvious animal characteristics and some of the most pop culture references, since she was allowed in her owner’s house and therefore had lots of tv access. The real philosopher of the group though is Kylie Anderson’s Lion, who struggles with how to marry her new-found freedom to her ideals as a well-informed PBS viewer. All the characters are loved and fretted over by St. Francis of Assisi (a warm Rasheeda Denise), who jumps from story line to story line to provide emotional support.

Another major theme is that of faith. St. Francis isn’t the only holy character to be invoked, as the monkey and the wild cats each have a god of their own, and the Jehovah’s Witness gets an A for effort when it comes to sharing the word of Jehovah. Initially, it was a little difficult to see what all the varying holy figures and faiths had to do with a story of freedom and found family – no character is particularly protected, whether they have a god or not, and the presence of faith does not lend anyone more confidence or certainty than anyone else. As the story comes to its conclusion, each character experiences the consequences of their own personal choices, some of which were guided by their faith in a higher power, and some by their own conscience.

While the deeper themes may make it seem difficult to describe this play as “wacky” it does manage to keep things ridiculous enough to not be weighed down by them. The many pop-culture references, 90’s song sing-alongs and visual gags are a lot of fun to be a part of, and despite the fact that the production I saw was still workshopping, the actors moved around the stage and delivered their lines with a casual grace and confidence that made it feel like they were much further into the production. There are several fight scenes that Anderson shines in with appropriately feline grace and Attea’s full throated versions of 90’s classics is a lot of fun. There are a few hiccups, for example, though each character has a name, the program only lists the animals by type, which led to some confusion, as I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out which actor was playing the mountain lion and which the “regular” lion, etc., since they referred to each other by name almost exclusively. That said, the cast bursts with energy and life, the cat-acting may be some of the best I’ve seen – shout out to Gehred-O’Connell for randomly kneading a wall at one point, and the play weaves in enough pop culture, little asides to the audience, and bizarre religious ceremonies to keep everyone entertained for the duration. Independent theater is often strange and entertaining, but it is rarely this smart and funny as well.  THE PETS is worth making time for, and the conversation to be had afterwards will be a good one.

Recommended

Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia

The Pets will be performed at the Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark St., from February 11 to March 1. Weekday and Saturday performances will take place at 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $5 to $35 and can be purchased online at brambletheatre.org.