Seagull
Chekhov’s Seagull is showing at the Arcola from 9 June.
Many people see Chekhov’s plays as relentlessly slow and sad, says Joseph Blatchley, a view he once shared. But his eyes were opened, he says, when he acted in a production of the Cherry Orchard staged by world famous director Peter Brook.
“Brook made me see Chekhov in a different light, see how vibrant, ridiculous and extraordinary his plays are.”
Blatchley hopes his Arcola production, and the new translation of the play he has helped to write, will challenge existing perceptions.
“I’m hoping to shed all of those ideas and come close to the experience I had with Peter Brook,” he says. It is simply wrong to see Chekhov as an unremitting pessimist.
“Chekhov is so life enhancing. When you leave the theatre having seen a Chekhov play, you should feel like you want to live more.”
Blatchley contrasts Chekhov’s essential compassion for his characters with the way his Norwegian contemporary, Ibsen, approached human frailty.
“Chekhov loves his characters-warts and all,” he says. “He doesn’t judge them. This is so different from someone like Ibsen, who can be cruel in the way he expresses our failings.”
The new translation includes sections of the play that were removed when it was first published.
‘We discovered all these cuts that were made by Russian censors in the original version,” he says. “There are about five to six pages of cuts in total. Some of the bits that were missing reveal a different perspective of certain characters, some are stage directions and some cut through the high drama to create truly funny moments.”
Blatchley’s approach to directing the new translation is to let it live and breathe.
“As a translator, I imagine the play and live through it,” he says. “But then the actors step in and realise it in a way that I could have never imagined. Chekhov was a genius, so you try to let the play speak as best you can without denying yourself.”
Seagull
9 June – 16 July 2011
Arcola Theatre
7.30pm (2.30pm matinees)
Box office: 020 7503 1646