It’s a meta start to a talent-packed updating of a play about a group of writers and actors wondering whether theatre is still relevant in a world on the brink of destruction.
So far so topical. But cult German director Thomas Ostermeier’s production see-saws between the comedy and tragedy of these moaning Russians – who are all in love with the wrong person – while sometimes teetering into self-indulgent tricksiness.
On Magda Willi’s white cyclorama set, a parade of characters wearing charity shop chic rustle through a clump of wheat to slump down in mis-matched garden furniture and declare their feelings.
The comedy often holds us at one remove – notably with Cate Blanchett’s raging narcissist Irina Arkadina who relentlessly pulls focus with her tap dancing, bra-shucking, faux histrionics – at one point even doing the splits and belting out a song.
But even her pleading with lover Trigorin to stay is just another performance, and concern about her son’s suicide bid is followed with worry about a cold sore – making it hard to find pathos in her refusal to confront painful reality.
Emma Corrin ‘though is magnetically intense as naive aspiring actress Nina, and Kodi Smit-McPhee making his stage debut as Irina’s neglected son Constantin, treads the right line between whingeing Gen Z-er and tortured soul.
And Hart is moving as a lovelorn working class outsider, whose passion for Tanya Reynolds’ Emo Masha is utterly futile.
There are longeurs in the three-hour run time, but also moments of genius: Jason Watkins is bittersweet as ailing uncle Peter, who has lived a useless life – not least in an hilariously deadpan game of last gasp bingo.
But the not always successful tension lies in Ostermeier trying to make an emotionally and intellectually engaging piece of theatre while busily pointing out the artform’s flaws.
The Seagull runs at The Barbican until April 5.
