when the gun goes off….
saw The Seagull last night at The Guthrie, again with Sir Ian McKellen. and i was delighted to see that the Royal Shakespeare Company played up the humor as much as they did, because parts of it were hysterical. it made me think how wonderful and easy theatre is, and how hard i find everything else. well, everything that is except sleep.
there was a scene last night that left me breathless, astounded, and with goosebumps that lasted a good five minutes. if you aren’t familiar with The Seagull, that’s ok. all you need to know is that one of the main characters, a boy, loves the girl next door, she in turn loves the boy’s mother’s boyfriend, the boy finds out and is heartbroken. in true chekhovian fashion, naturally he tries to kill himself because of this. one of the other characters sees him in the act and tries to stop him, saving his life, but also dooming him to the pathetic existance of someone who tried to kill themself and failed. the gun goes off….and the lights don’t go off (as they usually do in theatre). the gun goes off and complete chaos ensues. every character filters on to the stage in reaction to the attempted suicide. every character has a job and a reaction, there was so much going on at once, it was simply amazing.
i’ve been in big productions before and when you have twenty or so people on stage it’s hard to play chaos and trauma without having it look completely choreographed. and last night, it was done to perfection. it seemed as though from the wings, there was an decision by the cast like, “OK, when Kostya pulls the trigger, we all run out, we all do something, ready, BANG! go!” it looked that spontanious and that’s what good acting and a tight company can pull off, night after night.
i miss it, terribly.