Konchalovsky's Bold The Seagull Completes His Chekhov Tetralogy in Moscow
Andrei Konchalovsky has once again turned to Chekhov's The Seagull, staging a new version at Moscow's Mossovet Theatre, where he had previously directed the play years before. Julia Vysotskaya and Alexei Grishin return to the production—this time, instead of playing Nina Zarechnaya and Konstantin Treplev, they take on the roles of Irina Arkadina and Boris Trigorin.
The Mossovet Theatre is now home to Konchalovsky's Chekhov tetralogy: The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Seagull. The director has repeatedly spoken of his profound reverence for Anton Chekhov's work, and his productions are never just another staging—they are deeply felt artistic statements. Infusing the dramatist's characters with his own passion and inspiring the actors with the same intensity, Konchalovsky crafts a cohesive work of art where every word, every piece of staging carries meaning. Even his choice to cast the same actors in different roles across his productions is a deliberate directorial gesture, underscoring the significance of these plays in his life. Year after year, he uncovers new layers of meaning within them, while the long-standing collaboration with his actors allows him to reveal these discoveries to the audience.
The Seagull boasts a rare symmetry among its characters: the aspiring writer and the established one; the actress at the start of her journey and the actress who has already traveled that path. By casting Vysotskaya and Grishin first as Treplev and Zarechnaya, and now as Trigorin and Arkadina, Konchalovsky brings to light a concept not always obvious in Chekhov's work—the audience sees, in essence, the same characters at different stages of life. Treplev could one day become Trigorin, Zarechnaya could become Arkadina, if only they follow the prescribed sequence of steps without straying from the path. Treplev's suicide shatters the delicate balance Chekhov constructs: driven to despair by unrequited love and the looming, almost inevitable transformation into a figure like Trigorin, he breaks free in the only way he can.
Denis Zaynullin portrays Treplev as an extraordinarily vulnerable soul. And suddenly, it becomes clear: the seagull is not the young actress enchanted by the famous writer, but the lovestruck fledgling playwright himself. After all, it is he who first kills the bird—and then himself—with what seems to be the very same gun.
In Andrei Konchalovsky's production, Konstantin Treplyov comes across as awkward and out of place. He is talented, yet he never quite fits in—not even within his own family. Boris Trigorin, played by Alexei Grishin, also grapples with the unnaturalness of his own existence. He is crippled by self-doubt as a writer, treating literature more as a means of survival than a true calling. For both men, Nina Zarechnaya becomes a fleeting hope of salvation—but she saves neither of them, only to end up wretched herself. Konchalovsky introduces the motif of Treplyov's passion for his mother, deepening the intricate entanglement of the fates of two writers and two actresses.
The lotto scene creates a powerful illusion of fragile well-being. Its soothing rhythm lulls the characters—and the audience—into forgetting that a gunshot will inevitably ring out, that one of them is doomed to die. Konchalovsky masterfully interprets Chekhov's dramatic device: the slow, creeping approach of catastrophe, unnoticed by those it will destroy. The lotto game draws the viewer into a state of oblivion, a fleeting desire to stop thinking about what is unfolding and to believe, if only for a moment, in a happy ending. So much so that even when the shot is heard, one wants to cling to Dorn's deliberate lie—that it was nothing more than the sound of a shattered vial.
