Ep 679 - The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode 679: "The Seagull" by Anton Chekhov

Release Date: December 2, 2024
Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Podcast Description: Overdue explores the books listeners have been meaning to read, delving into classic literature, obscure plays, and quirky children's books each week.

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Introduction and Context

The episode begins with Andrew and Craig introducing themselves and setting the stage for their discussion on Anton Chekhov's classic play, The Seagull. Andrew humorously distracts the audience by showing a gun he has mounted on his wall, hinting at Chekhov’s literary principle where every element must be necessary to the story ([03:03]). This playful banter sets a lighthearted tone for the deep literary analysis to follow.

Overview of "The Seagull"

Craig introduces The Seagull as Chekhov's first of his four major plays, highlighting its significance as a pivot from his earlier melodramatic works to more naturalistic and symbol-driven storytelling ([08:26]). They discuss the play's unconventional structure, noting its focus on the "drama of the undramatic," where events unfold with minimal plot resolution, mirroring real-life interactions ([09:35]).

Chekhov's Style and Innovations

The hosts delve into Chekhov’s departure from traditional plot-driven narratives. Craig emphasizes that Chekhov moves away from central heroic figures, instead presenting an ensemble cast with nuanced, morally ambiguous characters ([10:30]). Andrew adds that this approach reflects Chekhov’s belief that life itself is more about personal interactions and internal conflicts than external events.

A notable quote from Andrew captures this sentiment:
"Chekhov explores the drama of the undramatic, like life itself, where plots generally lack resolution." ([09:37])

Character Analysis

Andrew and Craig provide an in-depth analysis of the main characters:

• Irina Arkadina: A middle-aged actress and the epitome of self-centeredness, struggling with her wealth and relationships.
• Trigorin: A successful yet middlebrow writer, embodying the struggle between artistic integrity and commercial success.
• Konstantin Treplev: A struggling symbolist playwright, representing the quest for new artistic expression.
• Nina: An aspiring actress whose unrequited love for Trigorin drives much of the play's emotional tension.

Craig points out the complex relationships and unreciprocated affections that drive the characters' interactions, emphasizing the play's focus on emotional depth over plot ([34:14]).

Reception and Production History

The initial production of The Seagull was a disaster, with the lead actress losing her voice due to audience backlash, leading Chekhov to temporarily abandon playwriting ([10:55]). However, a subsequent production by Konstantin Stanislavski in 1898, who collaborated closely with Chekhov, revived the play’s success and Chekhov's passion for drama ([11:34]).

A significant quote from Craig summarizes this turnaround:
"Stanislavski is one of the pivotal figures in modern theater, transforming how plays are directed and performed." ([12:09])

Personal Reflections by Hosts

Both hosts express their appreciation for Chekhov’s intricate character studies and the play’s realistic portrayal of human emotions. Andrew admits a personal preference for more plot-driven narratives but acknowledges the profound impact of Chekhov's work on theater.

Andrew reflects:
"I do get, and this goes back to Waiting for Godot with me... It's not what I choose to read or go see most of the time." ([61:07])

Conclusion

Andrew and Craig conclude by recommending The Seagull to listeners interested in ensemble-driven plays that prioritize character development and thematic depth over traditional storytelling arcs. They also tease upcoming episodes, including a discussion on Gregory Maguire’s Wicked.

A memorable closing remark from Craig encapsulates the essence of Chekhov’s influence:
"Chekhov is like the magic of the play... emotionally, everything is still unresolved, which is the magic of the play." ([60:15])

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Notable Quotes:

• Andrew on narrative principles: "I feel like he should just bear it in mind as the rest of the podcast unfolds..." ([04:18])
• Craig on Chekhov’s influence: "Chekhov explores the drama of the undramatic..." ([09:37])
• Craig on Stanislavski: "Stanislavski is one of the pivotal figures in modern theater..." ([12:09])
• Andrew on personal preferences: "I do get... It's not what I choose to read or go see most of the time." ([61:07])
• Craig on unresolved emotions: "Emotionally, everything is still unresolved, which is the magic of the play." ([60:15])

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Final Thoughts:
This episode of Overdue offers a comprehensive exploration of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, highlighting its revolutionary approach to character and narrative structure. Andrew and Craig provide insightful analysis, making the episode both informative and engaging for listeners unfamiliar with the play.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

I've barely started it.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

Does he holds like the seeds in his little beard cup there?

[Craig]

You basically put a wizard's face on your tree and a bird can come snack in there.

[Andrew]

That is an Uncommon good. I will tell you why uncommon. I've seen the witch that like flies into the tree for the Halloween decoration operation. I've not seen little like wizard with like bird feeder wizard beard before.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

Hey, my name is Andrew Craig. Just hold on a second while. But before we start, I need to just carefully. And you can see this is. I'm doing it in the frame of the video so you can see it, but I'm just hanging. Hanging my gun on the wall behind me.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

So just so you and everybody at home knows there's a gun in here hanging on my wall.

[Craig]

Oh. So by the end of the podcast, is that gonna go off?

[Andrew]

I'm not. I don't know if I'm saying anything about the narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary and irrelevant elements should be removed. I don't know if I'm making a comment on that.

[Craig]

Okay. You're just putting a gun on a wall.

[Andrew]

I have a gun on my wall prominently hung up where everybody can see it.

[Craig]

I can see it back there. It looks like maybe it will be relevant later, and then I should.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, maybe.

[Craig]

You usually don't hang things on the wall during a podcast.

[Andrew]

I don't like to have loose threads hanging around in my life or in my narratives. And so that's just something to keep in mind when thinking about the gun that I've hung up behind me.

[Craig]

I'm glad that you've done this, because it is not. It is interesting. Maybe it's relevant.

[Andrew]

It is that.

[Craig]

Maybe it's relevant to this podcast where each week we read a book and tell the other person about it. And this week I read a play, which is often a book. I read the Seagull by Anton Chekhov. I don't know that he knows about your gun, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I don't know, but I just. I feel like he should just bear it in mind as the rest of the podcast unfolds in case it comes back later.

[Craig]

In case it comes back.

[Andrew]

So I was distressed to learn that this play does not have a seagull in it. And maybe it was just Jonathan Livingston Seagull, like, sort of primed me to be expecting a literal or allegorical seagull to appear. But there is a lead, is not a seagull.

[Craig]

There is a dead gull in it. And there is a woman who kind of equates herself to that goal. I was reading a little bit that the. I don't know the Russian word for the title of this play, but this book, this play does not take place next to the sea. It takes place next to a lake, and there is a gull, but it is not a seagull. And someone translated it into English as the seagull, and it stuck. You could just call it the Gull, and I think it would be accurate based on what the Russian is. But the seagull sounds better. So that's what we're left with here. That's what I have to tell you on that front.

[Andrew]

I think the theater in Moscow that, like, made Moscow plays of his. Yeah, famous, like, still uses a seagull as its symbol to honor this play and the production of it that went on there. Yeah, but, yeah, I read that thing too. Is that, you know, we use seagull, but maybe that's not technically accurate to what the original Russian was.

[Craig]

What do you know about Chekhov other than the fact that you hung a gun on your wall?

[Andrew]

I knew nothing about this guy other than his gun going in. But I now know that he was a Russian writer of plays and short stories and other things.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Who lived from the years 1860 to 1904. And he was also a physician by trade. He is known to have said, medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.

[Craig]

Great way to put it. He was a comic writer. He wrote many comic sketches, as they are called.

[Andrew]

He thought of many of his plays also as comedies, though that is apparently not how they were often produced because of just they were too subtle to be perceived or produced as. As comedy sometimes, I guess. But Chekov was born to an abusive father who fled to Moscow when Chekov was 16 to avoid debtors prison because of, like, a contractor who had scammed him, which is very. I feel, like, relevant to our day and age, or maybe any day and age.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Chekov was left behind to pay the debt and finish schooling, but he moved to Moscow three years later to attend medical school, at which point he became the main provider for the whole family. And his first writing was done during this phase in the late 1870s, early 1880s, to bring in money for the family and to pay his tuition. So he's writing a lot in the early to mid-1880s, just like, quantity wise, writing a lot of stuff. It's a letter from this author. Dimitri Gregorovich complimented his talent and encouraged him to focus on quality of output rather than quantity. Gregorovich also helped a short story collection of his in 1888 called At Dusk to win the Pushkin Prize, which was one of the moments where his fame started to really take off. His first produced play, because we're talking about him as a playwright here, I kind of focused on that was Ivanov in 1887, which was written in 10 days and successful despite Chekhov's initial dislike of it. Like, I think he made a lot of changes after the first production, and it kind of succeeded after that.

[Craig]

Yeah, the thing will. We'll talk about the Seagull today, because that's what I read. But the Seagull is the first of his four, quote unquote, major works. And he does have a couple of plays that came out before that that are much closer to what the standard type of theater was at the time, or melodrama, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah. What I read was that the. The last three plays that he did, the ones right after the Seagull, so uncle Vanya, in 1897, 1900, he did the three sisters, and in 1903, he did the Cherry Orchard. Those are the three especially that are kind of collectively known now for how they try to reflect how people, like, actually act and speak with each other in real life, which is a big, apparently major innovation in acting. Yep, we talk about it. And. And also I read about this in Yale's Modernism Lab. Just like what his. What his. That's just what the name of the publication is. I just love that as getting a sense of.

[Craig]

There's some modernism happening in that lab.

[Andrew]

Modernism Lab.

[Craig]

Experimenting on mice. Modernism.

[Andrew]

And this article says one of the characters in the Seagull complains about a play within the play that nothing happens, a complaint that has been repeated by critics of Chekhov's later plays. In them, he turns away from conventions like the love plot, the climactic final gunshot, even the main character. Instead, Chekhov explores the drama, the drama of the undramatic. Like life itself, Chekhov's plots generally lack resolution. And then also these later plays, quote, move away from the focus on a central heroic figure. Instead of heroes or villains, the later plays tend to feature ensemble casts of characters who are neither particularly good nor particularly bad. So, yeah. Curious to know what hints of that kind of manifest in the Seagull. I'm sure there is some of it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The later plays, especially are kind of moving away from those archetypes, those, like, plot archetypes that you're talking about, the.

[Craig]

Notion of plot in general.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The fun, fun thing about the Seagull, which was written in 1895, produced first in 1896, is the opening night of the first production with Chekhov in the audience. It was a complete catastrophe. Like, the singer playing the character, Nina, lost her voice from stress because the audience was booing so much.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And the initial flop of this was so bad that Chekhov, for a little while, just kind of renounced playwriting entirely, which is maybe part of the reason why there is kind of a stylistic break in between this and then the later ones that he did. But there was another production of it by Konstantin Stanislavski, which was produced in 1898, and he and Chekhov kind of worked together on that production of it. And it can revive it. One, was a huge success, and two, like, revived Chekhov's interest in being a playwright in the first place.

[Craig]

Yeah. For anybody who doesn't know, Stanislavski is, like. He's one of the guys. There's always more than one. He's one of the guys that we can point to as creating the, like, modern sense of what a theater director is like. The. The role of a theater director, pre the late 1800s, largely was like, an actor, manager, a guy. And. Which is funny because Stanislavski also acted in the plays, but whatever. Yes. But was just like, I don't know, guys, we're getting together. We're gonna do the play. Like, let's just. Let's just get there and we'll figure it out.

[Andrew]

And a real Charlie Brown Christmas kind of.

[Craig]

Truly. Yes.

[Andrew]

Situation.

[Craig]

And Stanislavski, you know, one of. He's not the only one, but, you know, one of his innovations is that he would quote, unquote, score the play. So there's a. A score of the Seagull where he is, like, with each line, making notes about what characters are doing. And it's so funny to read about that as someone who went to college and then started professionally directing. And that was just like, this is just what you do. Like, you. You come up with a. An idea and a vision for the production, and then you are the one at the helm. And there are other models, of course, but, like, it is a relatively recent version of that role relative to the several thousands of years that we've been doing theater on the Earth. And his. He's also the guy who is like. If you think about method acting, which is really a. By an invention of American theater instructors like Lee Strasberg, they read some of Stanislavski stuff and then came up with a whole thing on their own. And folks like Stella, I feel like that's just classic.

[Andrew]

Classic actor to just, like, listen to part of what the director says and then tune them out and think of your own thing instead.

[Craig]

Yeah. And, like, the method is the whole thing where you are, like, coming up with. You're tapping into your own history. You're tapping into your. Your own emotions and saying, like, well, how could I right now feel the way that the character is feeling and make myself act similarly? Whereas, like, Stella Adler is purportedly doing what is closer to what Stanislavski wanted, which is like, let me imagine the circumstances in which this character is living, and I will try to live truthfully in those circumstances in front of an audience. And, like, you it's all intertwined with the type of writing that Chekhov is also interested in doing, which is this very naturalistic and yet very symbol driven and emotional, but very plot light type of storytelling. So it's an interesting like historical pairing that these two guys find each other and contribute to a type of theater. That, yeah, sounds kind of silly that it's as revolutionary as it was, but the notion that you like, wouldn't have a well made plot even. Even as something like Ibsen would do, or you wouldn't have character tropes a la, you know, commedia dell'arte or just like melodrama, villains and heroes and things like that is new to people and bizarre, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I think really it only sounds silly to talk about it now because it's a victim of how prevalent it became. Like it seems so self evident that that's how it would work. Even as a layperson who has not ever directed a play. Sure, yes, that, yeah. The only other stuff about, I mean, obviously there's tons of other stuff to Chekhov's life. The other, the other stuff I kind of noted that I thought was interesting was that he, in the 1890s, he wrote movingly of the. Some nonfiction about the lives of prisoners and the need for prison reform. He wrote, I might be mispronouncing this, but Sakhalin island, which is a penal colony north of Japan in Siberia, right? Yeah, yeah. He traveled there and observed the conditions there, including like a prisoner who was a parent of a child, and the child just like ran around after their dad, like holding their shackles and then slept in a big pile with their dad and like all the other prisoners just like a lot of pretty horrific stuff. And he became a really passionate writer about the need for reform of these systems and that government really owed it to prisoners to treat them more humanely. Obviously this is a, this is a his writing zone. This obviously solved the issue. This isn't a problem anymore. And we don't ever, you know, there's no need to further improve things because we fixed it.

[Craig]

Yeah, we definitely did.

[Andrew]

But yeah, his, like those writings became like super, super influential. Like Murakami did some stuff based on this, a bunch of other authors.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Used it as a springboard to do other. To do other. And then the translation you read, I believe you said was by Paul Schmidt.

[Craig]

Yeah, I read the, the Paul Schmidt. Like, it's this kind of. At least as somebody who was going to school for theater in the aughts, it's this kind of iconic Book that's got this cover with the plays, and it's kind of gray, and you get given. You get given scenes from it in acting class, and then you go, wow, these. That's pretty good. He set out. It was in the 90s, I think. Right. Did you do a little reading on him at all?

[Andrew]

Just. He. Born in 1934, died in 1999. Most of what I know about him is he's, like. He's a multilingual translator. So he did not just like Russian authors, like Chekhov, but also translated Euripides, which is ancient Greek, and then a couple of French authors as well, wrote some of his own plays, and was married, Craig, to Stockard Channing of East and the West Wing fame.

[Craig]

Whoa. Good for him.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yeah. Good work, Paul.

[Craig]

Yeah. Schmidt is the. Is the. I've had this collection of Paul Schmidt Chekhov plays on my shelf. This is like, OG Overdue type stuff. Like, I've had this collection for a long, long time. I've read. I think I read the Cherry Orchard in this collection once. I worked on a production of Uncle Vanya that used the Christopher Hampton translate. I think it was the Hampton translation. He's another guy who started. Who did a seagull in 2007. Right.

[Andrew]

The pig from Tiny Toon Adventures. I remember. I know Hampton.

[Craig]

Yes. He's very. He's a very good translator. Yes. And these were just kind of, like, always there as, like, one of the premier American translations. And there's some stuff in. In the introduction that Schmidt writes. I liked his notes. I'll probably cite them in the latter part of the show a little bit. But he talks about, like, it's important that the play be in the vernacular of the people seeing it. And he's not precious about the fact that, like, other countries and other parts of the world and in 20 years, somebody needs to write a new translation. But he. American audiences, in particular, American theater audiences, are often underserved by, like, British translations of plays because we have all of this extra baggage around British accents being, like, a particular type of class and way people behave. And we. We need things. He is saying that we need voices that are putting it in our own vernacular. And it's not like he's. Yeah, this is not written in, like, you know, Howdy Doody drawl or anything like that. But it is just. It is in English that I can just read. It doesn't feel like it's from anywhere other than some people who went to art school, you know, like that.

[Andrew]

But it's not like it's not set in the Jazz Age or.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

Something like that.

[Craig]

No, it is said in. It is not an adaptation. And he does make a point that, like, up until when he set off on his project, he was seeing if American writers were tackling it. They were doing works of adaptation. And so he wanted to do a work of translation instead. I don't know that's empirically true, but that's his, his tale that he told.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So I thought he perceives his own work as important to. Well, to like divining what his goals were.

[Craig]

Yeah. Why else do you do it? I'm sure that there's plenty more to say of a play that doesn't have much plot, so actually we could probably run through that pretty quickly. But let's take a quick break and then we will talk about the Seagull.

[Andrew]

Craig, if someone mentions a website in the first act of a play, you know that by the third act of the play they're gonna say that it was made in Squarespace. That's just the rule. That's Chekhov's website, baby. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. It's a website that helps you make websites and boy, do they help you look good doing it. They give you Drag and drop tools 24. 7 Customer support, beautiful templates, all kinds of stuff you need to make a great looking website without needing to know anything about making websites. And that's, that's really, that's the invaluable secret sauce that Squarespace brings.

[Craig]

Very important. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Here's some things we like about Squarespace other than the stuff I just said. Design Intelligence Craig. Using two decades of industry leading design expertise, Squarespace helped you unlock your strongest creative potential. Design Intelligence empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use across one's entire online presence. SEO tools Craig, you know about these. Get discovered fast with integrated SEO tools. Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto generated sitemap and more. So you show up more often to more people and global search engine results. You can also sell content. Squarespace makes it easy to sell access to content on your websites like online courses, blogs, videos and memberships. Recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall. Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one time fee or subscription for access. If any of this sounds useful to you, please go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're Ready to Launch. Go to squarespace.com overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's squarespace.com overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Craig, as you know, holiday season's rolling up. It's coming real fast.

[Craig]

It's coming.

[Andrew]

You gotta give gifts. You gotta get gifts for everyone on your list. Everybody.

[Craig]

They're all here.

[Andrew]

I know. If you want, if you'd like to give somebody a tech gift this holiday season, Craig, don't give them a laptop or a phone. Give them something that will make them feel closer to you, like an Aura frame. Aura frames are beautiful WI fi connected digital picture frames that allow you to share and display unlimited photos. It's super easy to upload and share photos via the Aura Aura app. And if you're giving an aura as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories. I mentioned in a previous Aura Frame ad read that my in laws have been beneficiaries of these frames. Like they, they have them and they use them well. My father in law came back to my house recently and took the other aura frame that I had here to give to. To give to his mom.

[Craig]

Oh my God.

[Andrew]

So that she could have it.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So not only they're very easy to set up and they're also very popular. So Aura frames, great gift for relatives especially. I can vouch for this personally. You can, you can upload photos from your phone with just one click. And if there are multiple kids or grandkids in the family, you can give everyone access through the app so they can add new photos easily. There's no memory cards or USBs required. There's a reason Wirecutter named it the number one best digital photo frame. For a limited time, you can visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver Matte frames by using promo code overdue at checkout. That's auraframes.com promo code overdue. This exclusive Black Friday Saber Monday deal is their best of the year, so don't miss out Terms and conditions app. Craig. Don't mind me. I'm just kind of adjusting this guy because I, you know the gun that I hung earlier, do you remember?

[Craig]

Oh yeah, I remember the gun. Yeah. You set it up earlier.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm just, you know, I was looking at it. I kind of don't like the angle that it's hanging out. So I'm just gonna fiddle. I'M gonna be fiddling with this gun to please be. Change the way it's. Change the way it looks on my wall while you tell me about the Seagull by Anton Chekov.

[Craig]

Okay. I do need to tell you, though, that the whole thing with Chekhov's gun is that, like, he didn't even. He knew it was a trope that he could subvert. Also, like, once everybody knows about Chekhov's gun, you could put a gun up there and it's gonna cause a lot of distraction, and then you could do something else. Or you could make, like, the point of your play. The fact that the gun doesn't go off. You know, that's like the Cherry Orchard. But we're reading the Seagull, the gun's gonna go off. Spoiler alert. So there's a lot to. I could probably. I have seen this play.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

At. At Kenyon College.

[Andrew]

I saw that doesn't count. Okay, so Susanna was telling me about this. Apparently, our friend Steve.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Who normally reads the little blurb at the beginning of every episode, his dulcet tones. He was. He was a guy in the.

[Craig]

Did she remember what role he played? I didn't text him to ask.

[Andrew]

It is possible that she told me, but I was too busy asking if he had played the seagull to really register the factual information. My guess, she was telling me.

[Craig]

My guess is that he may have played Dorne the Doctor, because that guy comes on stage and sings a lot. And Steve Dowling, very talented singer. And I think he. He may have come on and. And sung on stage. If I recall that production. I don't really remember. There's almost always. Go ahead.

[Andrew]

No, just. What I got from Steve when I texted him is honestly, what I remember most was getting to know Steve Ellis is what? Steve. Our friend. Our friend. Not Steve Ellis.

[Craig]

Yeah, he was.

[Andrew]

Steve Ellis, who is a. Another Kenyan college kind of actor. He was in, like, the last two seconds of Hail Caesar. He's on Wendy. An old Wendy's commercial about nuggets. I think he did it like a Carnival Cruise ad or something.

[Craig]

I think an apartment ad, maybe.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Apartments dot com. Yeah.

[Craig]

And he's been in movies and stuff. Like, you know, other than Hail Caesar's a movie.

[Andrew]

I mean, most of what I remember is the per. His performance as guy who's really excited about chicken nuggets.

[Craig]

This is what it is to go to a college of, like, 1600 people and, like, no, 40 of them is like. If any of them are on tv, you remember it forever.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's like, okay, I know, I know. Like the guy who's the lead singer for Walk the Moon.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Also Steve Ellis, who is in a Wendy's commercial.

[Craig]

These are the things I know. Anyway, the Seagull, Yes. I had seen it in college. I have not seen a professional production of it since I have seen Three Sisters. I've worked on Uncle Vanya. So, like, Chekhov, for me, is this interesting playwright that I have never directed personally and never acted in personally, but I've, like, encountered a bunch. And he. The Seagull is this interesting. I wanted to do the Seagull for the show because it is the first of what we classify as his major works. And as you pointed out, it is this kind of pivot point between more melodramatic works and his three, you know, masterpieces. Uncle Vanya is a rework of a play he hates called the Wood Demon that he wrote. And there's a funny note from translator Paul Schmidt in this intro where he's like, yeah, there's a couple of plays I didn't put in this complete plays collection, including the Wood Demon, which is a thing he said he hated. And I would never dare to put this. Put that in here. But through the magic of editing, he turned that into Uncle Vanya, which is a beautiful play. And, yeah, the Seagull is interesting because it does feel like this comic romance. It's not a farce, but the majority of the main characters are all in love with someone in some sort of, like, I love them, but they love someone else kind of way. And there's this, like, web of connections, and they have these big feelings and big emotions that could be played for laughs or could be played for tragedy. Seems too strong. And the play is mostly about how a lot of that stuff goes unrequited and people have regrets, and they are very big and bold with their requests and love for each other. And none of it works out like that. That is the play.

[Andrew]

So is that. Is that the. The sort of. The. The melding of those. Those two things is like all those. Those story tropes do exist, but then they don't end up being the point or they don't end up a little bit.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Expected places.

[Craig]

That's an interesting way to think about it. Yeah. Because it is like, there are pairs of lovers. There are people who have, like, secret conversations. Even though none of this, nothing is secret. Like, everybody just is aware of what's happening. The big thing about his plays, and this is a good example, I have a Quote from it, from the. From the intro that says, this is Chekhov, I think in correspondence. I don't know that he wrote this in a. Like, a preface or anything. He said, what happens on stage should be just as complicated and just as simple as things are in real life. People are sitting at a table, having dinner. That's all. But at the same time, their happiness is being created or their lives are being torn apart. Now, we all just went through Thanksgiving at the time of this recording, so think about that first of all. But also American Thanksgiving. Of course, it is what it is.

[Andrew]

We went through it because we all did. It was a thing to be born.

[Craig]

But the other thing about this play is that there is a character who takes his own life at the end of the play. He attempts to take his own life. Earlier in the play, there are big things that happen to another character. Like she has an affair, she has a baby, the baby dies. Like, all of this happens off stage. And so what you're left with is a bunch of people on an estate, not dissimilar from the one that Chekhov bought, Melikovo, where they just kind of hang out and have very strong feelings about all the stuff that happened off stage. And there is a version of that that you could point at and be like, well, that's kind of silly. In the same way that, like, you know, Shakespeare would put a lot of things off stage that he couldn't stage, whereas Chekhov seems to be leaning into. And I think there's a version of Shakespeare where it's working as well, where it's like, well, that doesn't matter. What matters is that. That that person is in front of you right now. And you, the audience, get to see them experience how they process the information, how they respond to that information. Like, that is so much more of our lives than the, like, events that transpire that shape them. And so he has decided to focus on the parts where we are, like, processing and reacting, rather than the, like, big swings and misses or the big successes that happen. Sure, the closest thing to a thing that happens in this play is in Act 1, where they put on a play within a play, and it's kind of fun, but nobody likes it except the Doctor, and everyone makes fun of the writer for it. And that, like, sets in motion some stuff. But the rest of the play is a lot of people coming on stage saying who they're in love with or not and being happy or sad about it or not. And then at the end of the play, our main character decides to end it all and then the play is over. Like, it is pretty plotless. If you want a plot where like someone is gonna make a decision about what happens to the estate or someone is going to decide to change the way they've been behaving. Like that is a big. Like, that does not really happen in this play at all. And it is not the point of the play, which might. Which may or may not frustrate people. I don't know what to tell you. If you don't like it. I suppose it sounds like going in.

[Andrew]

Kind of expecting a point. Like a. A point as like classically defined.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

To get disappointed by this.

[Craig]

Yeah. I mean it's not that it's without points. It's, you know, it is a. It is about a community and family of artists who are debating the style of art that is valuable to the human experience. It is about the kind of what it is to be in love and how mercurial and how bizarre that can be. And it is about regret. It has points. It just doesn't have a like. And if so and so makes this decision, the rec center is saved. Like, it just doesn't have.

[Andrew]

That's what I mean. It's like points in terms of like a plot that can be articulated and not so much points as in like something to say about something. Sounds like it does have that.

[Craig]

It has more to say about the human condition than it does about anything these characters do. Let me tell you about these characters. That's usually when we've done plays before. I feel like just going through the list of characters is usually a good way to cover a lot of what happens. So we have Irina Arcadina or Arcadena. Excuse me. I think it's like the feminine version of the name Arcady. She is a middle aged actress who is currently in a relationship with a writer, Trigorin. She's pretty self centered. She has, you know, acted for a while. She thinks she's pretty good at it. She's also a bit of a miser. She has like multiple references to her having 70,000 rubles in the bank and sharing it with no one. Plenty in the context of. I think so. Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And I do like, to the point of there not being an explicit conventional plot here, you would expect the way people talk about her fortune, that by the end of the play something would be done with it. And. And that does not happen. Her lover, Trigorin is this successful but kind of middlebrow writer. Like he. He writes in journals. He does some Articles, he writes novels. He does not seem to be someone who is necessarily, like, lauded as a revolutionary voice, but he is successful. And when he talks about his own craft, he has a really good monologue. And I think Act 2, where he. It's the everything is content like conundrum where he talks about, like, he can't see something in his life without thinking about how it would work in a story. He can't just look at a cloud.

[Andrew]

That cloud could be content, baby.

[Craig]

You know, and he kind of hates it. And he. But he also, he, like, he can't not write about it. He has this kind of compulsion about it.

[Andrew]

I do sometimes wonder, like, what life was like for posters before they invented posting. Because, you know, like, posters have always existed. I think we've talked about how.

[Craig]

Yeah, posters.

[Andrew]

One of the, like the original poster. Because he had to go and post those theses up on the. Correct up on the door that time.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, it just must have been a lot harder to be a poster before he had a place to put it.

[Craig]

I do think Trigorin has poster's disease. I think you're right. Like, I think he is stuck posting. He can't stop refreshing. He can't stop getting likes, you know, speaking.

[Andrew]

Stop reading. He can't stop reading all these depressing scrolls and everybody's like, stop doom scrolling, dude.

[Craig]

Jesus Christ. Who? Constantine.

[Andrew]

It's something.

[Craig]

Constantine. Who is Arcadian the son? He is a struggling writer. Speaking of somebody who's getting no likes. He is posting and no one's responding. He is living on this estate and he is trying to advance a new form of writing that is symbolist in nature. Other symbolist playwrights in the real world. August Strindberg Maeterlinck. I don't remember his first name. It's not quite naturalism, but it is kind of diving into some of the same psychological territory. And as a. As a playwright or as another writer, he's just kind of engaging. He's trying to find a new way forward for, you know, with the 20th century so close, and he's struggling. He's not. He's not getting his audience. And we're gonna see in the course of the Seagull, he's gonna do some writing and people are not gonna respond well to it. He is in love with Nina, who is the daughter of a nearby rich guy. She wants to be an actress. She's not, but she is going to perform in this play of Constantine's. And when after the play, she winds up falling in love with Tregoren, whose writing she is familiar with. They are all on. She is the seagull. If there is a seagull in this play, it is her. She's not a literal seagull, Andrew. I'm so sorry, but she is a person. There is a. There is a gull on stage at one point. It is not alive, but it is there. And I'll tell you about it. Okay, That's.

[Andrew]

I mean, still can't help but feel a little cheated by that. But, yeah, you know.

[Craig]

Well, okay, whatever. There is Soren, who is the. In my recollection, I can't say this to be true. I don't remember the Cherry Orchard very well. I don't remember three sisters very well. There's usually an old guy who's not doing well, like that. That is, like, a thing. I mostly remember Uncle Vanya pretty well. And I just read this play, and there's always an old guy who's just not doing well. And that's Soren. He is the owner of the estate. He is the brother of Arcadina Arcadia, the actress, and he is full of regret for his life. He wanted to be. One point, he says, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to get married, and I didn't do either of them. That's his whole deal. And later in the play, his failing health will be, like, a reason for people to come back to his estate. But other than that, he's mostly there to express regret. We've got some minor characters coming next. We've got Shamrayev, who is the manager of the estate. We've got his wife Paulina, who loves the doctor Dorne. We've got Masha, who is their daughter, who loves Constantine, and she has a bit of a drinking problem, loves Constantine, even though he does not love her. She is going to wind up married to Medvedenko, who is a school teacher, who's in love with her. They do. By Act 4, they have had a child together. And she's like, whatever, we had a kid, I guess he's like, our kid, maybe. And, like, they fill an interesting role, Masha and Modvenko. They open the play and she's, like, dressed in black, and it feels very peanuts where, like, he's like, why are you. Why are you always in black? And she's like, I'm in mourning for my life. And he's like, I don't know. Like, I don't earn a lot of money. Like, it is kind of very. The ways in which this play feels comic to me. If you need a touchstone, like just go read some peanuts first. And then like you will find a lot of these, you will find a lot of Linuses here, I think.

[Andrew]

All the depressed middle aged children in the Peanuts cartoon, correct?

[Craig]

Yes. So Marshall of Constantine, there is Doran, the doctor. There's almost always a doctor that is your self. Insert Chekhov character. I don't know if we said this, he passed away when he was like 44, very young, of tuberculosis. But so there is this kind of sense of tragedy, of unfinished work for his career. But a lot of what people respond to throughout his career, not just the plays, is that he's this insightful, you know, he brings his, his ability to diagnose to how he understands characters. And so Dorne is this doctor who's on stage, he's singing all the time. He is the only person who likes Constantine's play and says that it has something to say about the human condition. And so he's this interesting guy that's kind of around. We got Medvedenko, of course, as I mentioned. And then you've got a, you got Yakov, who's a workman. You've got a cook and you've got a maid. There's always like some, some servant characters around on this estate. So that's, that's the dramatist personae. You've got, you know, a mother and a son. There are some allusions to Hamlet and they're, you know, in the. Gertrude has now married Claudius. So like she's bringing this other guy home. Not home, but per se, but. And like Constantine doesn't like it. There are quotes from Hamlet in the Seagull. So like that. He's definitely doing that on purpose. And then you've got Trigor and Nina.

[Andrew]

Everybody, everybody, everybody knows about William Shakespeare.

[Craig]

Craig, Everybody knows about William Shakespeare. There wasn't. There was an interesting note in the Schmidt footnotes where he points out that something that Nina says in the latter part of the play, Act 4, two years after the events of Acts 1 through 3, where she has gone off, she has had an affair with Trigoran, she has had a baby, lost a baby, and is now this like, actress who kind of wasn't good and then is now okay. And she keeps referring to herself as, as the seagull. And she goes, no, that's not right. And apparently this quote of that's not right or no, that's not right is from some other like major Russian. I can't remember if it's Pushkin or somebody else called called the Water Nymph. But Schmidt argues that it would have been as well known as Shakespeare among Russian audiences. And so there are these other quotes that. That is something that I. I can't fully bring to the table here, just based on, you know, one or two reads of this play, which is like, there are a lot of literary illusions here that Chekhov is doing. And I can. I can give you some. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of them.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

But I don't know. It's a four act play. The first few acts are a matter of weeks. The last act is two years later. The first one sets up all of the love triangles and includes the part where Nina performs in Constantine's play where she is literally the soul of the world.

[Andrew]

Cool.

[Craig]

With a dramatic monologue about, like, what will. About the world hundreds of years hence when everything is dead. It's pretty intense and I kind of love it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I could. Yeah, you could say that.

[Craig]

But nobody else in the play seems to like it and keeps interrupting him. And Constantine storms off and cancels the play. Particularly, his mom hates it.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And only the doctor. Dorne really likes it. But it does lead Nina to meet Tregoren. And the whole act ends with Masha complaining to Dorne, the doctor, that she's in love with Constantine. He's not gonna love with her. And Doran is like, all this love. He says, maybe it's the lake nearby, and just kind of remarks on how everyone in this play is acting weird because of how in love they are. So there is this in the water? Yeah, and there's this like, on the first page to, like, when Med. When what's his name, Medvedo, is expressing his love to Masha. She's like, I. I know you love me. I just don't love you back. And then she takes a hit of snuff and she's like, do you want any? Like, it's this kind of like, again, like, this is. This can be comic and often is supposed to be, even if there is stuff that. That moves you. So then there's a few days later, you know, Arcadena is getting ready to leave, mostly because she's very bored and wants to go into town. But the guy running the estate, Shamrayev, is like, I can't afford to give you any horses. And she flips out and decides to leave. Constantine gives Nina a seagull that he shot.

[Andrew]

Huh?

[Craig]

And it's like. He's like, here, I did this in your honor. Here's a dead bird and she's like, why? Why would you do that? Like, what is that for? And he says, I intend to shoot myself one of these days. Just like this. And they kind of fight a little bit about how they don't understand each other anymore and how he's sad about it and jealous of Trigoran. And then he leaves. There's your. There's your seagull. A man brings a dead gull and puts it at her feet. I think there is a. I don't know. This is probably pretty reductive. I feel like I've seen a lot of, in my life, indie movies that have this, like, blend of. If you've never seen Chekhov, if you've never experienced it, like, think about. I don't know. This happens maybe in some Wes Anderson that's probably, like, more than an indie movie, but there's just, like, movies where people just kind of, like, show up and do some stuff, and then people have to react to it. And it's not all set up in advance, and it's mostly them just expressing their emotions at each other. And then the kind of. The story moves on from there. Like, it's Craig.

[Andrew]

Life.

[Craig]

Life.

[Andrew]

Isn't it set up in advance?

[Craig]

Exactly.

[Andrew]

Come on.

[Craig]

Again, when you say it out loud, it sounds hokey, but when you, like, like, are reading the story, it is moving because these people, they do just want to love each other. And I don't think that, even as much as it can be a comedy, I don't think Chekhov is making fun of them, you know? So he gives her this dead goal, and she doesn't know what to do with it. She connects with Tregoren, and she wants to be an artist. She wants to be an actress. He is an artist. And again, as I said, he. He kind of sees material everywhere. He can't escape it. The quote that I have for you is, what's so beautiful and bright about that? Being an author? He says, it's a stupid life. Here I am talking to you. I'm all worked up, and still I can't forget for a minute that I've got a story to finish. I see a cloud like that one shaped like a piano, and all I can think is, I have to use that. One of my characters has to see a cloud shaped like a piano. He kind of goes on from there, bemoaning his. His life as a compulsive gambler without any money. He says. And she is like, no, this is what I want. I want to be you. I want to Be with you. And he is moved by her. Her passionate love for him, and would perhaps stay there with her. But Arcadina Arcana wants to leave, and he's like, okay, I guess maybe we'll leave Act 3. Here's the big thing about this play. Andrew Constantine attempts to take his own life. And the way we learn that is at the beginning of Act 3, when Masha is like, man, he tried to do it, huh? Like, it's not a. It's not a thing where you hear a gun go off. I don't know how. Your gun on the wall.

[Andrew]

Off screen.

[Craig]

Yes. You know, gun on the wall.

[Andrew]

It's still back there.

[Craig]

It's still back there. You know, you see him show up bandaged, and Masha is, you know, complaining to Trigoran that she does love him, but she's not. She doesn't know what to do with Constantine. And that's kind of like the context through which we find this information out. But it is him being like, I don't need to show you that. I just want to show you all the parts where people react to it.

[Andrew]

You know, so it's like Ted Lasso season.

[Craig]

What if that season was good, though? That's what this play is.

[Andrew]

What if Ted Lasso season three was good? Bold.

[Craig]

All of Chekhov says this. Nina gives.

[Andrew]

I feel like between people who haven't seen Ted Lasso and people who don't agree that the last season was bad, we're probably alienating a lot of people right now. But I just feel like I need to speak my truth about ted Lasso Season 3.

[Craig]

I honestly, when you. You. You were banging that drum, and I was not prepared, and then I watched it, and I was like, wow. Wow. Where I think this is a great comparison, where I think that Chekhov gets away with what he's doing, is that you still have these moments of, like, profound human behavior that, I don't know, are moving to watch and don't. Even if the, like, you know, plottiest thing happens where no one can see it, you have these interesting characters given, interesting things to do. Like when Nina gives Trigoran a gift of a little medallion that she is, like, etched a reference to his books on, and he has to go, like, track down the line and page number in his own book. Which is kind of funny, just that she's like. She's invested in his work in a way that he's not. And she gives him this, like, quote that says, if you ever need my life, come and take it. And this is after he. She showed him the goal that Constantine shot for her. And he's like, huh, that's an interesting story. A man shows up and ruins a woman's life. Interesting. Just like this dead gull.

[Andrew]

Makes you think.

[Craig]

Makes you think, huh? So then there's a lot of arguing in Act 3 about whether or not Argan is going to stick around, whether or not Dragorian is going to go with her. Soren is not doing well. There's lots of arguments about how Soren thinks that she should support Constantine financially, how Constantine thinks that she should support Soren financially. Sorry, there's a lot of shs there that are confusing me.

[Andrew]

Yes, I can hear that.

[Craig]

Yeah, I didn't really. I don't really know how that happened. And there's a big blow up between Constantine and Arcadena where they both declare each other kind of worthless artists, and he stomps off. There's a really interesting scene where Arcadina convinces Trigoran to leave with her, and as soon as she's done, says to herself, like, ooh, I've got him. Like, she flatters him into, like, staying with her rather than staying with Nina. And the second that she's done, you get a sense that she knew what she was doing all along. The Schmidt footnotes point out that there's this long passage, I think, in Act 1 or Act 2, where she is reading from, like, another writer's work. Maupassa, I think his name is where it's all about. Like, you know, she's reading it in the context of the play, and then she declines to read the rest of the passage, and she says instead, the rest is boring. Anyway, it's not true. And Schmidt pulls the full quote for you and is like. It's this whole thing about this woman wearing away a guy's resolve to be with anyone but her. And the way that she does it is by flattery quote, because he feels like an idol, he stays in the temple. And she has decided not to read that for anyone else after reading ahead in the book and declares it not true. And that. That, to me, just kind of fit thematically the way in which Chekhov is like, I don't even. Characters in Chekhov plays are like, I don't need to tell you the whole thing for you to get something out of what I'm gonna do right here. Instead, it's this interesting little moment that encapsulates, like, how he structures his whole place for me. But Act, Act 3, Trigoran is persuaded to leave Nina behind though, they make plans to meet each other in Moscow. And as we, as we said, Trigorin was very sad and went away. Act four is two years later and it's a big time jump. Masha and Medvedenko have gotten married. They have a kid and she does not care about it. We catch up on the two years that we've missed. Nina and Trigorian got together. She got pregnant, lost the baby, he abandoned her. She's not an amazing actress, apparently, as she tells it, because she was pregnant at the time and it made her feel very weird about her own body and didn't know what to do. And she says she's better at it now. She is in town, but refuses to see anybody. Constantine has, like, been say anything outside her window at the hotel or whatever, and she's not answered him. He has become somewhat successful, but is still getting lots of criticism for his symbolist writing and doesn't seem to be working out. It's very depressed about it and Soren is definitely going to die. So. Arcade Arcadia has been invited back to the property and they decide to play some lotto. Andrew Lotto is like an older version of Bingo. Ooh, I love a scene that's written like this. It feels very of this era of theater to me, where, like, there's not plot happening, there is action happening because the characters on stage want to win the lotto game. And so there is lotto happening where people are calling numbers and then some people get to check off boxes on their card based on the numbers called. And they're having chit chat about each other while this is happening. And so you get to learn things like how Arcana has not read a single thing her son has wrote. Her depressed son, who wants validation from anyone about his art, and she just hasn't found time to read any of it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a lot of work.

[Craig]

And then a few lines sounds like.

[Andrew]

Sounds like a. Sounds like a real bummer from being honest.

[Craig]

And then a few lines later, Trigorin wins the game of lotto and is declared one of the luckiest men alive. So, like, you know, that's what you get when you set up a scene like that where, like, no, again, no one is advancing a plot. These characters just want to play a game, but he is advancing, like, thematically what is happening to these people. We get this big scene between Constantine and Nina where they are. They see each other for the first time in two years. She kind of spills her backstory a little bit, comparing herself to the dead gull a lot with this big monologue that is like a little bit of everything and nothing. And she also is able to recite a bunch of the gorgeous stuff from his play that no one else liked, but I guess her and the doctor.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And it's this very, like. I don't know, she's trying to, like, convince him that she's under. Figured out something about living that he is not able to do. I have the passage here. I could feel my soul growing stronger day after day. And now I know. Kostya. I understand finally, that in our business, acting, writing, it makes no difference. The main thing isn't being famous. It's not the sound of applause. It's not what I dreamed it was. All it is is the strength to keep going. No matter what happens, you have to keep on believing. I believe, and it helps. And now when I think about my vocation, I'm not afraid of life. And he is not able to agree with her. She tries to kind of give him more information, give him some of his play back to him, and I think in hopes that it will help him see the world that she sees. And then she leaves. Then there's like, I was not prepared for this. There's one more page in this play. And he, like, tears up his writings, walks out the door. The bingo people come back on stage, play some more bingo. And you hear a gunshot off stage. And Arcadina's like, what was that? And the doctor says, oh, don't worry. Hey, don't. Yo. Don't worry about that. That was like, probably my medicine in my bag doing something weird. Don't worry about that. And he wanders over to Dragoran. He puts his arm around him. He's like, hey, you need to get her out of here. Her son is dead. And then curtain falls.

[Andrew]

Oh, man.

[Craig]

That's it.

[Andrew]

Oh, boy.

[Craig]

What do you do with that? I don't know. What are you supposed to feel? What are you supposed to think? Like. Like this notion that you would do a play that doesn't have some sort of, like. And this is the way the world should be is part of the. The Chekhov kind of revolutionary element, I think. And this kind of a thing, something is resolved. And yet emotionally, everything is still unresolved, which I think is like, the magic of the play. Yeah. I don't know. It's a. It's a good one. It's neat.

[Andrew]

It sounds good. Yeah. If you're. I don't know. I always. I feel. I do get. And this goes Back to the. The thing about Waiting for Godot with me.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, I do.

[Andrew]

I appreciate things about that play, but I do generally in narrative fiction, appreciate an arc or like a thing. Like a thing. A thing that is happening like a story. That thread that I am following that has to. Has to matter. And I. It's not that I don't. It's not that I can't appreciate like a sort of cinema verite sort of just like people sitting around and chatting or, you know, something. Something where a lot of the. The happenings or the development is like internal. But it's not what I choose to read or go see most of the time. You know what I mean?

[Craig]

Yeah, no, that's totally fair. I think you could stage this play and depending on how well you liked the performers and things like that, you could find yourself pretty invested in Constantine and Nina as. As a. Like, will he get to be with her? It is not. It. Sure. Not saying it's a Jim and Bam situation is not the way the play is written. I'm just saying that like you. The play sets up pretty early on that every. Almost every character has an unrequited. And what if at least one of them gets to get. There could be an open question that a production like kind of spins that plate a little bit for you. It's just interesting in the way that it is like at least reading it on the page. That is not the concern though, which may make for tough viewing if that's not what you want. Sure. I was struck by stuff like. There is what I do recall from working on Vanya and just what I liked about it as an ensemble piece like that. That is another thing. You mentioned it earlier in the episode not a few minutes after you put that gun on the wall that the.

[Andrew]

Still thinking about that gun.

[Craig]

I mean, I'm waiting to see what happens with it.

[Andrew]

Obsessed with this. Obsessed with this gun I put on my wall.

[Craig]

For some reason Andrew's gone that there is this like rich texture that comes up from just like there being a dozen or so characters who feel like they have inner lives. Like a lot of the. It's also wrapped up with the Stanislavski stuff where you. You do get to imagine a lot about where these characters are coming from. And so much in the script gives you stuff to make inferences about without giving you hard evidence. But also the. The texture of the life of this world where you have guys like. I've barely mentioned him. The guy who's in charge of the estate sham Rav. Who doesn't have a big part. He's mostly just kind of there to move things along. But then he'll come on and. And, like, tell you a story where he asks arena, like, hey, could you look up this actor for me? Like, we used to go out drinking. And he says, you know, like, he was a great actor. We were. They were playing conspirators in some melodrama, he says, and they were suddenly discovered. He was supposed to say, quote, we're in a trap. And what he says was, we're caught in a. In a crap. He laughs. He says, in a crap. Like, what is this line here for other than to, like, be in contrast to all of the bigger feelings? I suppose, for lack of a better word, there's stuff like this kind of woven throughout. Like, Sora and I have probably done a bad job of. Of talking about his arc in the play as. As someone who, you know, is a personification of regret. And the stuff with Constantine and Arcade now are, you know, just, like, really potent mother son stuff that, like, if you watch people experiencing that, it might be hard not to be moved, even if at the end of the day, you're like, I don't. I'm not quite sure what they were trying to accomplish. You know, they're like, yeah, they're trying to accomplish things moment to moment. They're trying to get people to feel a certain way in front of them, even if there is not a, like, goal, a conscious goal that they are working towards. And that can just. It's an interesting, you know, mode of theater that a hundred years of theater since is still, you know, grappling with and building on top of.

[Andrew]

Yeah. For real. Yeah.

[Craig]

So I don't know. It was kind of fun to read some. Read some Chekhov. I have not read him in a very long time. People should go check out Uncle Vanya. If they're not familiar, people should go see. Maybe we should go see it. If you're, like, not a person who reads plays regularly and are not sure what you would glean from reading the script. Like, this is one of the beginnings of the era of what we consider plays that have, like, subtext, where you don't know exactly what the characters mean when they're saying what they say. So the actors have to make some decisions on.

[Andrew]

That's kind of. And if you're thinking. If you're thinking about value for money, for your ticket or for, you know.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

The book that you're buying, you know, if there. If there's like, extra secret Kind of invisible text that's implied by the text that's actually printed on the page or said on the stage. You're just getting. You're just getting your money's worth.

[Craig]

I think it's extra words underneath the words that you're hearing, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's like a. It's like subtext now. I do wish there were more plays with super text.

[Craig]

God, you know, that was like.

[Andrew]

You.

[Craig]

Know, I want more of that, please.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

Well, that's the. That's the seagull. That's it. That's what I got for you. Caca.

[Andrew]

Caw.

[Craig]

Caw.

[Andrew]

Seagull is the second seagull themed book that we've read this year, I think, unless we've read more than this and.

[Craig]

Jonathan Livingston, that's probably it so far.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

See what we can squeeze in by the end of the year. Anyway, if you have a favorite seagull text that you need us to know about, send us an email. Buy Seagull. What? Have a seagull. Type an email to us. Overdue. Podmail.com is the address you can find us. Also on social media, Seagull Media, verdupod, bluesky and Instagram are the places where we're spending most of our time. Thanks to Robert, Madeline, Kathy, Maria, Luke, Tabby, and many more for reaching out in the past week or so. Thanks to Nick Laurentis, who composed our theme music. Andrew. Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is our Internet website. Up there we have the books that we have read and are going to read. I think our December schedule is like, mostly done, but not all the way done. Right?

[Craig]

Yeah, we're not quite finished. I think we know what you're reading next. Right? Is that true?

[Andrew]

Yes, yes.

[Craig]

Just gotta find it. I'm scrolling.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I. I know what I am currently reading.

[Craig]

Oh, do you want to say. Do you want to tell us and.

[Andrew]

If it's the wrong. Yeah, so I am reading a book called Wicked, which I think is about candles. About.

[Craig]

Oh, yes. Huh.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So that's. I think that'll be fun for next week. No, that's. I'm reading Wicked, the book by Gregory.

[Craig]

Maguire.

[Andrew]

Which is turned into a stage show of some renown and then also a movie. And I just am excited to hold space for this book on our podcast this month.

[Craig]

I was going to ask if you wanted to hold any space for it.

[Andrew]

I just wanted to hold a little bit of space.

[Craig]

Okay, great.

[Andrew]

And just imagine that I'm like, weirdly intertwining my fingers with yours right now.

[Craig]

You don't have to imagine, buddy. Bang. The gun. Whoa.

[Andrew]

Oh, crap. I was gonna say, I looked back and it was gone. Somebody took it.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

I think. I think Chekhov. Chekhov visited me and came down my chimney and took my gun from my wall.

[Craig]

Is that how that works?

[Andrew]

That's how it is every. Every December 2nd, you leave a gun on your wall. Well, it's like the night of December 1st. And then into December 2nd, you leave a gun on your wall, and then you wake up and it's gone. But you hear a gunshot off stage somewhere, and you have to. You just have to figure out what happened.

[Craig]

I love this.

[Andrew]

And that's how it. That's how it works.

[Craig]

Whoo.

[Andrew]

We made it. We did it. All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast and putting up with us and the things that we say and do and think. Until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.