Matter and Spirit in The Seagull

Matter and Spirit in The Seagull JOHN REID "Our time must be defined by two opposing features - it is a time of extreme materialism and, at the same time, of the most passionate idealistic outbursts of spirit. We arc present at a great, significant struggle of two views of life, two diametrically opposed world views." - Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1892)1 "[T]he materialistic movement is not a school or tendency in the narrow journalistic sense; it is not something passing or accidental; it is necessary, inevitable and beyond the power of man.... Outside matter there is neither knowledge nor experience, and consequently there is no truth," - Chekhov to A.S. Suvorin, 7 May 1889·' "It's difficult to act in yo~r play. There are no real living characters."] At the end ofthe most recent National Theatre production ofThe Seagull (1994) in London, the lights faded to leave a single spot tightly focussed on the outspread wings of a disconcertingly large, yet elegant, stuffed seagull.4 It was clear that, for the sake of theatrical closure, a symbol had landed. But the audience seemed distinctly unclear about how to react. It was embarrassed by the director's assumption that it could do something with this object, make it mean more, rescue it from a state of semiotic aporia. It was a fine specimen of something from within the bird family, but it might as wcll have been an albatross. It was a theatrical false note of deafening cominess, and yet it epitomized a much deeper, common failure in recent professional productions of the play. Too many directors seem to be unwilling to recognize the strength of Chekhoy 's rejection of the ideological baggage of symbolism and the equally uncompromising nature of his materialism. It seems to be a timely moment to challenge the facile assumption that invariably links Chekhov with symbolist Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 607 608 JOHN REID methods. Even in the refreshingly astringent ' 990 RSC production, Terry Hands clearly assumed that directing The Seagull involved him in the process of realizing symbolic statementsS When directors get bored with traditional symbolic interpretations, they often feel obliged to exercise their directorial privilege and choose their own symbol. Hands decided that Trepliov's little makeshift theatre, not the seagull, is the main symbol in the play. Cynics may have felt that the apron staging at the Swan in Stratford, hosting a sizeable clump of backstage birch trees, meant that thc "symbol" itself had weighed heavily in this artistic decision. Trepliov's rustic theatre remained visible among the birches throughout the production. (This was a symbol on a minimal theatrical contract - just he there.) When interviewed about the production , Hands offered a thematic justification for his choice of symbol by claiming that The Seagull is a play about play-making. No embarrassing questions were put to him about how theme and symbol might ever surface, or interconnect, in 'he theatregoer's mind. Like most directors of Chekhov, Hands seemed to assume that if there was a symbol around, the whole thing would hang together· With respect to the "seagull" as a symbol, there is nothing new about an interpretation that draws attention to Chekhov's ironic treatment. But there is a case to be made about the playas a whole and the extent to which its ironic structure draws its strength from the depth and subtlety of Chekhov 's materialist vision. In the reading of the play that follows, I have deliberately set out to underline the degree to which the force of the play resides in its sceptical dismantling of symbolist rhetoric and idealist preoccupations - replacing bloodless abstractions with "living characters." The most obvious clue to Chekhov's ironic design makes itself felt through the reversals and inversions associated with Trepliov's aborted playlet. When, in Act Four, Nina repeats the opening lines of Konstantin's youthful symbolist drama, the audience should experience these lines in an entirely different manner than in Act One. Most modem actresses follow the lead of Komissarzhevskaya in showing Nina as someone who has won through, who has faith in her work, and who aspires to be a great actress. Trepliov's comments warn us of...