February 5, 2014
The GazetteFebruary 3, 2014
By Pat Donnelly
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Production is Segal Centre’s first full Chekhov play
MONTREAL — Traditionalists are likely to be startled (if not sent into a coma) by Peter Hinton’s freely adapted version of Anton’s Chekhov’s classic, The Seagull, which begins previews at the Segal Centre on Sunday.
While Hinton insists that he believes in respecting the essence of the classics, he has a habit of reinventing them in provocative ways.
In The Seagull, instead of quoting Russian poets, the characters will be alluding to key passages from the works of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and — Fleetwood Mac.
That’s because the first thing Hinton did was to “remove the 19th century,” as he put it during a recent interview at the Segal Centre.
Once the modern setting was established, “it necessitated translating some things historically,” he added, “so you know, horses and carriages turned into cars. Things like that.”
Hinton admitted “there’s always a slippery line between what’s faithful translation and what’s adaptation. I try to be true to the spirit of it. I tried not to invent things that Chekhov didn’t invent.”
What has he got against the 19th century? “It’s a very easy period to get romantic about,” he said. “In the late 1900s and early 20th century, the long linen dresses and parasols — it’s very beautiful. This might be my own reaction to it. I lose some of the immediacy, the freshness, the vitality, the controversy that Chekhov knew he had.”
Duly noted. Hinton’s acclaimed production of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892) at the Shaw Festival last season began with a fashion parade featuring dazzling long gowns and fans.
In his The Seagull, Masha (played by Krista Colosimo), who traditionally wears black, will still do so. Her long skirt has been traded in for a black T-shirt and shorts (designed by Eo Sharp). Don’t look for any samovars on the set, either.
Chekhov’s characters often quote lines from renowned poets, such as Pushkin. “In Canada, in 2014, those references are exotic and obscure,” Hinton said.
So he has them recall lyrics by the likes of Mitchell and Cohen, also the gurus of an idealized era.
When Arkadina, the fictional actress in the play (portrayed by Lucy Peacock), mentions working with a Russian actor who actually existed, we have no idea who he was. “So I make him Christopher Plummer,” Hinton said. The fact that Peacock has worked with Plummer at the Stratford Festival, adds a layer to the name-dropping.
He also decided that another Chekhov character was due for a sex change. Arkadina’s brother Sorin has become Sorina, played by another Stratford veteran, Diane D’Aquila. “Diane is such a great actress,” he said. “That’s what matters.”
As do the original ideas of the play. The reason he and Segal Centre artistic producer Paul Flicker chose The Seagull, Hinton said, was because “Chekhov is so much about the relationship between theatre and art and writing to life. He was such a huge innovator, such an incredible, unique original voice. He changed the way we think about the theatre. He changed the way we understand truth on stage.”
Hinton said he was shocked to hear that no full-length Chekhov play had been done at the Segal Centre. Dora Wasserman, who founded the resident Yiddish Theatre company, trained at the Moscow Art Theatre where The Seagull played in 1898 after premièring in St. Petersburg two years earlier.
This is also Hinton’s first crack at Chekhov, whose plays get a bad rap, he said, because they are often perceived as “morose meditations on life” with a heavy dose of melancholy. “Chekhov’s plays are full of characters that want to leave,” he said, “and they stay.”
Although Chekhov never gave The Seagull a specific locale, it takes place (like his The Cherry Orchard) on a family estate. To Hinton, the setting is comparable to Knowlton, or Niagara-on-the-Lake, where he has lived for the past two years.
As soon as he’s finished with The Seagull, he’ll be heading back to direct the musical Cabaret for the 2014 Shaw Festival season.
No, he doesn’t miss his former job as the artistic director of the English Theatre of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. “I had a very exhilarating time, a really exciting seven years,” he said. “But I felt very shackled by the institution. In principle there’s a great desire for change, an encounter with who we are as a country. But in reality I found the NAC to be really a regional theatre.”
After a few years, he came to feel “like the least important thing I had to offer was my art.”
Still, he’s optimistic that his successor, Jillian Keiley, will figure out the NAC puzzle.
Hinton is working on a play about British poet Dame Edith Sitwell and adapting Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland for the Shaw Festival, to be aired in 2016.
Next year, he’ll take up acting again, with One Yellow Rabbit theatre company in Calgary. “I’m very excited about that,” he said.
The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov, adapted and directed by Peter Hinton, Sunday to Feb. 16 at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte Ste-Catherine Rd. Tickets $49, seniors $44, students $24. Call 514-739-7944 or visitsegalcentre.org