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This installment will
attempt to trace some of the important symbolism in the play while
maintaining the focus on the characters of Nina (Natalie Portman) and
Trigorin (Kevin Kline). The character of Masha (performed by Marcia Gay
Harden) will also be discussed. The character
of Masha (Marcia Gay Harden) is important because she introduces the theme of
the play and is questioned by the Schoolteacher- Medvedenko (Stephen
Spinella), as to why she is wearing black. She answers that she is mourning
for her life. Certainly and a strange comment, which should alert the
audience, that they are about to see an out of the ordinary production. Masha
states that the performance is about to begin, and Medvedenko repeats the
word performance, and a fair amount of sarcasm should have been obvious. Then
Medvedenko turns the topic into a "compare and contrast" theme
regarding, the love between Nina and Konstantin as compared to the love
between himself a school teacher and Masha the one who always
wears black. One could easily view these
very characters as symbols, with the teacher being the one who sheds the
light upon Masha who is always dressed in black.
We view
Masha, as a dark and gloomy character, and our light-hearted school teacher
is attracted to her. By contrast Konstantin, is dark and gloomy, and is
attracted to the light and airy Nina. This idea will be re-visited when the
big scene with Trigorin and Nina, as well as the performances of Kevin Kline
and Natalie Portman (in this scene) finally get reviewed. Chekhov has created
characters in Medvedenko, and Masha, that are not truly totally developed or
fleshed out if you will. These two characters have been assigned parts that
are most akin to atmosphere. They introduce important elements in this play;
serve as symbols, which we have to think hard to somehow
decipher. Then they recede back into the play itself, as a backdrop (a
setting if you will) from which we can continue, to view the dramatic
conflict continue to unfold. The sexual
metaphors are there. We do not have to look too deep. Konstantin's play
mentions fusion of matter and spirit. The interrupted play may contain more
meaning, perhaps a reference to some universal fear of death. The play within
a play must be stopped somehow, for even Chekhov must have realized the
masses would have a very limited attention span for viewing Chekhov's post
apocalyptical view of the universe, and its eventual reconstruction. The
armchair critics (personified in Medvendenko, and later in Dorn) have a go at
a critique of the unfinished play. Then Konstantin conveniently leaves the
stage, Masha in pursuit, and enter Trigorin. The character
of Arkadina now in just eight separate lines of dialogue (Stoppard pg 14-15)
is able to steer our focus away from her petulant son's insignificant
production back to her favorite topic of interest, being sex. It seems that Chekhov had
developed a formula here, to keep his plays in production, Chekhov must have
known what today’s advertising concerns constantly capitalize on, sex sells.
This way he could introduce his prophetic snippets (via Konstantin and
Trigorin), create a character (in Arkadina) who simply can not stand to look
too deeply at anything of spiritual significance, and create a dramatic
conflict, by pitting these characters against one another, struggling to
survive.
The
struggle to survive is a good launch to an entirely new essay. So let me make
my point here and now, and make it quick. Seagulls struggle to survive by
continuously competing with each other for scraps of food. As soon as an
individual within the flock finds a scrap and moves towards it, the rest of
the flock follows. Therefore in the very act of feeding, the seagull must
then prepare for the competition. Getting back to the play, we can now make
sense of the lines spoken by Trigorin in Act III when he is speaking with
Masha (Stoppard, Trigorin pg 38). Her son is
being awfully difficult. Not content with trying to shoot himself,
he now wants to challenge me to a duel,... ...He sulks and stamps his
foot and preaches his doctrine of new forms. but there is plenty
of room for all, there's no need to push and shove. Suffice it to say, that the
work of Charles Darwin was not unknown (The Origin of Species by Charles
Darwin was first published in 1858) in Chekhov's day. Anton Chekhov, who was
also a an MD in addition to being a prolific writer, also knew his life would
be short (like a flower) because he had Tb. Therefore, he must have felt the
evolutionary pressure from the flock of great writers of his day if
his works were to survive into the next millennium. Chekhov was only forty-four
years old when he died.
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The Flower as a Metaphor:
The flower is
another important metaphor, threaded throughout the play. First we have
Konstantin pulling a flower apart, "she loves me, she loves me not"
in Act I, Then we have the character of Dorn, " (hums softly)
"Tell her my flowers...' " (Stoppard, Dorn pg 12) singing a little
ditty about flowers. Later in the same scene, we have Nina (Natalie
Portman) the young aspiring virgin star, giving up her white posy flower, to
Dorn. Which Dorn's lover Polina immediately tears up and throws to the floor.
Polina Oh, aren't they pretty, so tiny and delicate...Give me those
{flowers}. Give them to me ! (Stoppard, Polina, pg (29). The flower metaphor was
brilliantly woven into the plot.
The flowers
spring up once again, in the very long dialogue delivered by Trigorin (Kevin
Kline), the accomplished writer, to Nina (Natalie Portman). There is
actually more of this review, some tragic technological event lead to loss of
about an hour and a half of intensive html code writing ! Now, I am in the
process of re-writing what has already been written, ugh ! Technology, oh
what a price we pay ! Also my spell checker on Microsoft word got killed
somehow, and I desperately need a copy of FrontPage (I'm not too picky 2000
would be ok for a windows Me system). Anyone want to donate their software to
the cause. Also I
need a sponsor for a huge Rosh Hashanah, event that will be occurring on September
17th, 2001, in New York City. You could remain anonymous if you like, I
will include the proper link to Kabbalah here soon ! My previously
"unpublished" Kabbahlah inspired writing will be published here
soon. The following is an editorial
comment from the author of this piece (me) regarding what meaning can be
gleaned from Chekhov's work today.
One of the things I have learned is sometimes one should ask for
what they need. Today too
many of us live life like the flock. There is no sharing in the flock, and
constant pushing and shoving. From the little research I have already done on
Chekhov, he was greatly concerned about the rights of man, as mentioned in
The Seagull. My personal belief
is that there is no shortage of wealth in this nation, as well as in the
world. Political theorists would have us believe that the economy of our
country has taken a major downturn simply because perhaps a handful of the wealthiest
have lost a few poorly placed bets on the great economic roulette wheel of
"high tech stocks". Our nation's
leader would now have you believe the same "voodoo economy"
nonsense that his party predecessors have promoted. Many armchair
critics have already sited the president's agenda as nothing short of class
war. I suppose I
could go on with this thread but do not want alienate too many of my
potential readers. One might wonder how Chekhov might have discussed the
problems that plagued his country in his day. I would like
to invite such a spirited discussion on my other web page, so that we could
bring the theme that begun as an analysis of Chekhov's play, into a modern
arena, and ask how different is the time period we live in now, to the one
that inspired and yes pushed Chekhov to feel as if his contributions as a
great writer, were simply not enough with the backdrop of the people's
suffering in his homeland. In all
fairness to you the reader, so as not to feel as if you have been brought
here on some false pretense, I will borrow the words of Chekhov himself
(substituting only one word). " I love America and its
people, and I feel that if I'm a writer it's up me to speak about our
people's troubles, their fate, and to have something to say about science,
and the rights of man ...so I speak about everything ! I rush around,
urged on from every side- people getting cross with me- I dash this way
and that like a fox with the hounds on its trail. Ahead of me I can see
Science and the Rights of Man leaving me behind as I chase after them
like some yokel missing a train "
(Tom Stoppard, Trigorin, pg 34) Then Chekhov is very hard on
himself as he has Trigorin deliver the lines about himself:
" I know
how to write and in everything else I'm a fake, a fake to the marrow of
my bones." (Anton
Chekhov The Seagull, A New Version by Tom Stoppard, Trigorin, pg 34) Written,
edited, and coded into html by Stephen C. Sanders, September, 5, 2001
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