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The Seagull

The Seagull by Anton Cechov resumes “flight” for an extended and long-awaited tour staged by the Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius.

CREDITS
year
2001
text
Anton Chekhov
translation Fausto Malcovati
a project  conceived by Eimuntas Nekrosius for actors attending Ecole des Maîtres
directed by
Eimuntas Nekrosius
cast
Pia Lanciotti, Fausto Russo Alesi, Amandio Pinheiro, Laura Nardi, Stephane Oertli, Ana Dinis, Vanessa Compagnucci, Paolo Mazzarelli, Cristian Maria Giammarini, Alessandro Riceci, Christophe Sermet, Hala Ghosn
set & lighting design
set design Eimuntas Nekrosius
lighting design Roberto Innocenti
additional details
assistant director Andrea Collavino
sound engineer Fabrizio Gambineri
costumes Filippo Guggia
production
Css Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG - Teatro Metastasio Stabile della Toscana - in collaboration with La Biennale di Venezia

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov resumed “flight” once more for an extended and long-awaited tour staged by the Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius. Opening in  the autumn of 2001 in St. Petersburg, the production went on to tour numerous Italian cities between October 2001 and February 2002. This new work adds to the director’s catalogue of  re-readings of Chekhov which began in 1978 with his production of Ivanov and was followed  by two further memorable productions - Uncle Vanja, in 1981 and Three Sisters, in 1996.
This production of the play however, co-produced by Css of Udine and the Teatro Metastasio of Prato,  has a particular history and genesis as it represents the development of a work initiated in 2000 during the ninth edition of l'Ecole des Maitres, the annual travelling drama school which offers specialist courses to European actors training in theatre schools and academies in Italy, France, Belgium and Portugal. The assignment was also a first for the Lithuanian maestro himself, who took on the task of working with a group of actors who, unlike his company back in Vilnius, he was not only unfamiliar with but who were also from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and with whom he was to attempt to stage a production that would develop day by day during the course of the training programme. Once again, as in previous productions,  this rendition of The Seagull is imprinted with Nekrosius’ unmistakable hallmarks. His is a theatre that blends and finds continuous strength in the elements of nature - in water, fire, the wind - a theatre that is rich in details and in the inventiveness of its sets, which, with disarming simplicity, succeed in highlighting and placing the hidden subplots of feelings and sentiment at centre stage in every production. Nekrosius’ Il gabbiano develops like a waltz, a waltz of meetings, promises and farewells which are danced along the shores of a lake which is evoked with a single row of twenty metal buckets filled with water. A frying pan represents the moon, a cluster of green apples hangs like a lamp, from the ceiling, and when Konstantin’s little theatre is struck by a premonitory wind it is not white birch trees that sway in the gust but a series of brightly coloured children’s windmills. And Nina’s disappearance and childlike hopes and impulses are, within tormented Treplev’s embrace, an unforgettable flight.

Images

Tour

premiere
3 July 2001
La Biennale di Venezia
Venice, Teatro delle Tese - Arsenale

tour
11 October 2001
Russia, St. Petersburg
24-26 October 2001
Bologna, Teatro Duse
28-30 October 2001
Milan, Teatro di Portaromana
2-4 November 2001
Perugia, Teatro Morlacchi
6-7 November 2001
Urbino, Teatro Sanzio
8 November 2001
Civitanova, Teatro Annibal Caro
11 November 2002
Ravenna, Teatro Rasi
15-16 November 2001
Gioia del Colle, Teatro Rossigni
17-18 November 2001
Bari, Teatro Kismet
20-25 November 2001
Rome, Teatro Valle
29-30 November 2001
Crotone, Teatro Apollo
1 December 2001
Cosenza
3-5 December 2001
Potenza, Teatro F. Stabile
7 December  2001
Civitavecchia, Teatro Traiano
9 December  2001
Latina, Teatro Comunale
10-11 December  2001
Napoli, Teatro Mercadante
14-16 December 2001
Lucca - Teatro del Giglio
18-19 December 2001
Cesena, Teatro Bonci
20 December 2001
Volterra, Teatro Comunale
2-4 January 2002
Udine, Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine
5-6 January 2002
Belluno, Teatro Comunale
8-13 January 2002
Genova, Teatro della Corte
15-20 January 2002
Torino, Teatro Carignano
23-25 January 2002
Cagliari - Teatro Alfieri
28 January 2002
Rubiera, Teatro Herberia
29-30 January 2002
Arezzo - Teatro Tetrarca
1 February 2002
Pavia, Teatro Fraschini
2 February 2002
Alessandria, Teatro Comunale
4 February 2002
Empoli, Teatro Excelsior
5-7 February 2002
Siena, Teatro dei Rinnovati
16-17 February 2002
Pisa, Teatro Verdi
18-20 February 2002
Cremona - Teatro Ponchielli