THE SEAGULL by ANTON CHEKHOV

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SET DESIGN PROJECT FOR DAMU 2013

In my interpretation of the seagull the whole play is unfolding as Treplev’s memories right before he tears up his life work and then proceeds to kill himself. Every character and every scene is how he remembers it happening. The basic element of the stage would be papers and texts that the actors will read and observe during the play.

The house is an allegory of Treplev’s mind, a dark, unstable and smothering place. My first idea was to symbolize that feeling with a real cage. Metallic structure all around, the actors inside of it. I tried to simplify the design, with fewer elements on stage but keep the feeling of the cage and of the piles of papers. Two walls divide the interior and the exterior of the house. They are made from a wire meta construction and are covered from the interior with hanging papers, Treplev’s texts and pictures, all showing parts of his memories. During the play the actors will explore the papers, reading them, sometimes removing them or adding more. Those texts/papers/pictures are essentially the script, they are parts of how Konstantin remembers the events unfolding.

For the first two acts we are looking at the exterior setting. The walls are mostly covered by the papers but we can still see light and shadows going through. There is a door on the construction and just one bench. For the performance the “audience” is sitting on the bench looking towards the wall. Nina is on the interior, slowly appearing from a pile of papers/memories on the ground and starts performing while Treplev is filming her. On the wall outside there is a projection of parts of Nina’s face movements as she performs. We actually see the performance through Treplev’s eyes, a man in love with her as well as his work. We can see her figure moving behind the wall creating shadows and we can hear her monologue as we look closely at her face.

For the next two acts we are moving in the interior, where there is only a desk and a few chairs. All the furniture are old, wooden and in an off white color palette. Konstantin is always sitting on the one end of the table writing on an old typewriter and adding texts on the wall as the rest of the actors sometimes read them. Right before he goes out to commit suicide after his last meeting with Nina, he starts destroying all his work, climbing onto the construction and ripping out the papers creating piles on the floor. He then proceeds to exit through the door an out of the stage.