Moreover, each scene comes with a detailed description of its set, along with general actions to enliven it, even before the characters appear. Korenev’s word choices nod to the play’s nineteenth-century roots, preserving terms like belletrist, kopeks, and snuff that highlight its setting and critiques of Russian social classes. In the cast list, the part of a character’s name that is used within the text appears in all caps for easy reference when Arkadina quotes Hamlet, the source is noted in parentheses and the repeating motif of the number four becomes a significant framing device that helps with interpreting the enigmatic work. In one scene, Treplev kills a seagull and presents it to Nina, who responds with “What’s with you?” Treplev’s reply is terse and hollow: “Soon, in a similar fashion, I’ll kill myself.”Īlthough The Seagull was intended to be performed, this translation provides formatting and paratextual elements that guide its reading experience, too.

Melancholy surrounds each unactualized, unrequited love. Love triangles color the play with a tragicomic hue: Treplev’s love, Nina, falls for Arkadina’s lover, Trigorin, and Trigorin reciprocates her feelings Masha, the estate manager’s daughter, falls in love with Treplev, and Medvedenko, a friend, falls for Masha. Treplev’s play results in a framework for interpreting Chekov’s play: the settings of both are the lake, and both critique art and its purpose. The play is met with general disapproval: Treplev’s mom, Arkadina, is an actress unaccustomed to this new style of theater, and her friends, a group of intellectuals from Moscow, do not understand the play’s intention. Sorin’s nephew, Treplev, has written a peculiar, metaphorical play featuring a neighbor, Nina, whom he loves. Set in the Russian countryside, the play focuses on a cast of family, friends, and domestic servants who are staying at Sorin’s house. In Anton Korenev’s layered translation of The Seagull, lovestruck elites banter against a struggling landscape that evinces beauty and elicits criticism of Russian art and politics.Īnton Korenev’s refreshing translation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull reveals the heart of the nineteenth-century story to a modern audience.

Anton Korenev Entertainment ( Aug 24, 2021)

The seagull anton chekhov