Articles and Reviews

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Palo Alto Daily News (March 21, 2008)

"Production overcomes script"

By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer

The real artist digs through pain to find meaning in this grim madness that we call life. That theme attracted playwrights Anton Chekhov and Tennessee Williams, and each dealt with it in his own way.

Three years before his death in 1983, Williams tried to merge the two writers' visions. He adapted his favorite play, Chekhov's "The Seagull," and retitled it "The Notebook of Trigorin."

The result was a problematical and rarely performed piece that is difficult to stage, so kudos to Foster City's Hillbarn Theatre for taking a shot at it, and coming up with a success. This is not an easy undertaking.

Chekhov is notorious for writing plays with little or no plot. In "Seagull/Trigorin," a motley ragtag of life's wayfarers loiter moodily in the garden of a large Russian estate overlooking a lake, and philosophize about the meaning of life and art.

Typical of Chekhov, this is an estate at the end of the 19th century that fears the decline of its own identity.

What little plot there is gets triggered in the opening scene by a famous Russian actress who unsympathetically mocks her budding playwright son when he attempts to produce a wordy and abstract play on a makeshift stage overlooking the lake.

Otherwise, the various neighbors and family members sigh from personal boredom, and make eloquent philosophical observations about the meaning of life. There's some romantic hanky-panky on the side. Someone has a gun.

Director Dave Sikula has done an excellent job getting a range of distinctive and striking performances from his Foster City cast of community actors. They create a rainbow of varied characters.

There is a touching and amusing scene early on between an earnest, love-struck schoolteacher (Adam Simpson) and the angry woman (Wanda Reimer) he adores. Larry Rekow is wonderful as a cynical doctor, calmly and narcissistically philandering his way through female acquaintances.

Randy Hurst is charismatic as the successful, mediocre writer Trigorin, filled with self-doubt about the value of his life. Trapped in a conjugal devil's pact with the estate's grande dame, Trigorin sleeps with boys on the side. That homosexual story element is an addition to the script by Williams.

As for the actress and mother to the young playwright, Williams has made Chekhov's original angrier. In this production, Bobbi Fagone plays her more mean than lost, and ratchets up the level of anger almost to the edge of buffoonery.

Mathew Ingle is effective as her confused and obsessive son.

"Trigorin" was written in 1980 in the last three years of Williams' life, when his best period as a dramatist was behind him. It is the work of a still unsettled man, alcoholic and addicted, restlessly looking back on his life.

There is a mean-spiritedness in the Williams rewrite that is not in the original play. It's most noticeable in the characters of the actress mother and the doctor.

By changing these characters, Williams has torn the fragile fabric of Chekhov's bored and ailing world of privilege. This is the main problem with "The Notebook of Trigorin."

As a result, "Trigorin" has a hard time finding a way to resolve itself. Williams drops into the script extra plot points (writerly success, baby adoption, American step parents).

He also drops in Freudian psychological motivations (closet homosexuality). These additions jump-start the story in places for a moment, but for Chekhov it's never really about the story.

Chekhov and Williams work at cross-purposes at times. These story changes also make less credible the all-important character of Nina (the radiant Loring Williams), a young actress with dreams of artistry, who pursues a bad love match.

Having said all that, "Notebook of Trigorin" is nonetheless a fascinating literary hodge-podge, as Williams attempts to overlay the 19th century Russian world of Anton Chekhov's with a darker, more psychopathological Americanized gloss. If you're a fan of modern theater, this is definitely worth a visit.

Rating: Three stars

E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@yahoo.com.

insideBayArea.com

"Hillbarn Theatre's 'Notebook of Trigorin' a noble and mostly successful ambition"

By Joanne Englehardt

Article Created: 03/26/2008 11:46:47 AM PDT

If you want to know what happens when you blend Chekhov's brooding "The Sea Gull" with Tennessee Williams' more poetic sensibilities, then catch Hillbarn Theatre's current production of "The Notebook of Trigorin."

Combining Chekhov and Williams is somewhat like making a sandwich of blackberry jelly and peanut butter; one flavor tends to overwhelm the other.

This erratic play, one of Williams' last works, never made it to Broadway and, in fact, has been mounted sparingly since it was performed in Cincinnati in 1996 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the original drama.

Credit director Dave Sikula, however, with having the good casting sense to put two sensational actors in it. Whenever the scene-stealing Bobbi Fagone (as vain Russian actress Irina Arkadina) or the coquettish, winsome Loring Williams (as aspiring actress Nina Zarechnaya) are onstage, the action sizzles. Sadly, they're not always onstage.

Fagone is eminently capable of commanding the stage, whether she's vainly rhapsodizing about her theatrical career or mocking her son and shooting down his dreams of becoming a writer. As for Williams, you'd have to be insane not to fall for her in the first scene: She's a virginal vision in white with a light green sash — and barefoot!

Randy Hurst, as the writer Trigorin, is Irina's long-suffering companion who is flattered by the adoration of the youthful Nina. With his commanding stance, formidable eyes and ageless charm, Hurst readily convinces the audience that he can attract such a beautiful young woman.

Costumers Mae Haegerty-Matos and Gail Farmer also star in this production. Their period outfits — especially those worn by Fagone, Williams and Stephen Maddox as Irina's illness-ridden brother, Sorin — are first-rate. Someone, however, needs to find a new pair of trousers for poor Matthew Ingle (Irina's son, Konstantin). Some audience members were taking bets on whether his pants would rip by play's end.

Dee Morrissey does a superb job with appropriately vintage hairstyles and wig design.

Maddox is particular affecting in the scenes where he progressively grows weaker, helped not in the least by the medicinal ministrations of the local doctor, Yevgeny Dorn (Larry Rekow). Rekow's over-the-top posturing and smarmy glances are unfortunate; the role begs for someone who can actually project subtle, charismatic insincerity.

It's somewhat perplexing why Tennessee Williams chose to write this "free adaptation" of "The Sea Gull." In his director notes, Sikula points out that Williams "worshipped Chekhov and that influence can be seen in many of his own plays." While that may be true, Williams' published intention was to bring the "quiet power of Chekhov more audibly to American audiences." It's regrettable that he often replaces what is merely implied in Chekhov with obvious actions. It works some of the time, but other scenes tend to be overly melodramatic.

Wanda Reimer plays the lovelorn Masha to the hilt. She's unbearably smitten by Konstantin, who has eyes only for the fair Nina. Masha wears widow's black all the time to underscore the fact that she's in mourning for Konstantin's love. The scene where she drowns her sorrow with vodka is just about the comedic highlight of the evening. (She does, however, look a tad older than the 21 she's supposed to be.) One more quibble: In Act 1, the staging of the play-within-a-play requires some of the actors to sit on chairs facing upstage. This isn't the best way to initially involve the audience, and it made some lines harder to hear.

There's an old saying in the theatre that unproduced plays are often neglected for very good reasons. But give artistic director Toni Tomei a round of applause for not doing "The Sound of Music" once more and never giving up on her vision to bring "The Notebook of Trigorin" to the Hillbarn community.