onStage Pittsburgh – If you are going to adapt an oft-staged classic work by a founding father of modern theater, it certainly helps to have a clear-headed vision, brilliantly executed, and complemented by a gorgeous setting.
Quantum Theatre’s production of The Seagull, adapted and directed by Joanie Schultz, takes Anton Chekhov’s tangled web of family dysfunction, artistic dissonance, and consequentially bad choices, and puts all the cards on the table in a way that feels as accessible as a work from the 1890s can, when seen through the lens of 2025.
Schultz has made one significant alteration by casting the role of Constantine as a lesbian, who is ruled by her passions for writing and Nina, a naive, aspiring actress who is in love with the idea of fame.
Constantine is played by Phoebe Lloyd, a 2023 graduate of Carnegie Mellon who was showcased in barebones productions’ Crocodile Fever. Here, Lloyd unleashes torrents of emotions, strutting and fretting over her art, her lover and the fraught relationship with her mother, the incomparable Lisa Velton Smith as Arkadina, an aging diva of the Russian stage who is wont to use up all the oxygen in any scenario.
As a mother-daughter relationship, their dynamic amplifies the complications for the unfortunate people in their tightly wound orbit.
Constantine lives in the countryside with her ailing uncle Sorin (Ken Bolden, at his affable best), where she pushes the envelope of contemporary playwriting, creating abstractions that crash head-on into the traditions of Tolstoy and the successful young writer Trigorin (Brett Mack), who dutifully follows Arkadina around, like the submissive lover to her neediness.
The Mellon pond and surrounding buildings at Chatham University provide an exquisite setting for Chelsea Warren’s integral scenic design, an idyllic spot for characters to express their misery.
We learn quickly that Masha (in a memorable turn by Maxine Coltin) is always wearing black because she mourns her life – at 22, her unrequited love for Constantine has her drinking heavily, and she resigning herself to a life with the kindly but boring teacher, Medvendenko (Evan Vines, a 2025 CMU graduate).
Masha’s parents (played by Gwendolyn Kelso and Paul Anderson) run Sorin’s estate, with Kelso’s Polina enamoured of Dorn (Daniel Krell), the ever-present local doctor and aging ladies man.
The performances are mostly wicked good. For example, you won’t find two better actors than Bolden and Krell for roles entwined with humor and gravitas, and relative youngsters such as Coltin are right in step with them.
Mack, who inspired compassion as the doomed alcoholic in last year’s triumphant Quantum production of Moon for the Misbegotten, brings what empathy there can be to a man who is described as “spineless” and whose presence causes huge problems for those around him. Nina (Julia Rocha) is enamoured of Trigorin’s fame, and her course is set.
Despite constant pronouncements about how boring life in the country can be, the quietude is filled to overflowing with emotional baggage. Some very funny moments come via over-the-top expressions of what characters are feeling at any given moment.
Famous lines we know from other adaptations of Chehov are mostly intact, but adapter Schultz incorporates American idioms in ways that often elucidate intentions. I’m not sure I’ve heard the word “pissy” used in The Seagull before, but it certainly fits the bill in context.
From the very beginning, it is clear that Velten’s Arkadina, by her words and actions, resents her daughter’s youth and potential, and that Constantine’s writing challenges the traditions that have sustained her career. In a delightfully nasty, self-serving turn, Velten’s Arkadina loudly interrupts a friends-and-family staging of one of Constantine’s abstract works, setting the table for more fireworks to come.
A distraught Constantine kills a seagull and lays it at Nina’s feet, which would seem to signify a loss of innocence. When Trigorin later finds Nina alone and sees the dead gull, he is moved to take notes for a story, which he says will be about a happy girl like Nina, who grows up by a lake, “until a man who has nothing better to do comes along and destroys her.”
The final scenes are rendered with haunting beauty. With the use of shadows, light and ambient sound, it is crystal clear that where the oblivious, self-centered Arkadina and Trigorin go, fresh ideas and youthful innocence are sacrificed to their whims.
Kudos to Warren’s set design, a literal circle of lives, and C. Todd Brown and Ryan McMasters (light and sound), for working in sync with nature, so that even with the occasional rumble of thunder on opening night, the performances of the stellar cast shined brightly.
Costumes by Damian R. Dominguez, in particular, the lavish frocks worn by Velten Smith and fitted suits, were character perfect, but I hoped there were bottles of water and ice packs awaiting each of the actors on a hot and humid summer night.
This searing Quantum production, humorous and heartbreaking in equal measure, reaches back to a classic and pushes it forward with fresh eyes, superb performances and a picture-perfect Pittsburgh setting.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Quantum Theatre’s production of The Seagull runs Tuesday-Sunday, 8 p.m. (no late seating), through August 17, 2025, alongside Anne Putnam Mallinson ’61 Memorial Pond, on the campus of Chatham University. There is a concession with drinks and snacks, and access to indoor bathrooms. A note of advice: Bring insect repellent, for dusk beside a pond. Tickets: Visit https://www.quantumtheatre.com/seagull/.
