Beau Meyer
Nina (Jamie Herb) and Connie (Jacob Guzior).
Award-winning director and playwright Aaron Posner has assigned himself a daunting and strange task — creating modern adaptations of Anton Chekhov’s classics for contemporary audiences. In his hands, The Seagull becomes Stupid F*cking Bird; Three Sisters becomes No Sisters (premiering next year at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.); and Uncle Vanya morphs into Life Sucks, which is getting great reviews right now at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre.
UW Madison’s Department of Theatre and Drama began its season with Posner’s irreverent, unconventional and fresh Stupid F*cking Bird (playing at Vilas Hall through Nov. 6). While the characters and their romantic entanglements are taken straight from the source material, the storytelling is innovative and often funny.
Under the direction of theater professor Patricia Boyette. the sullen Mash (played with lots of sharp edges by Zhiyun Zhao) sports a Goth look, complete with black lipstick. She pours her troubles out in songs she composes on her ukulele. The tortured artist Connie, brimming with rebellious angst as played by Jacob Guzior, yearns for artistic success and seeks love and approval from his actress/muse Nina (the fragile and naïve Jamie Herb) and from his actress/mother Emma (played as a plastic narcissist by Maddie Wilinski). Meanwhile, the successful writer Trigorin (tattooed hipster Malcolm Halsey-Milhaupt) toys with both women’s affections. To help the audience navigate all these intense emotional scenes, we get Dev (played as a sweet sidekick by Manuel Angel) and Sorn (a wry, contemplative Steffen Silvis), the older and wiser doctor who is undoubtedly the most interesting and real character in the play.
Just as Connie talks about making an artistic statement and waking up the theater audience by experimenting with new forms, Posner deviates from the norm and repeatedly breaks the fourth wall. He gives the audience the power to start the show by interacting with the actors and uses narration to move the scenes along. Posner also inserts some wordless, movement-based scenes into the play, adding many self-referential, meta bits, and leaving us with an uncertain ending. (Incidentally, the line, “Has anyone seen the catharsis?” instantly became one of my favorite moments in theater.) Some of these departures work well, but others feel gimmicky.
Similarly, some of the redefined relationships in this production of The Seagull-lite are compelling, while others fall flat. Connie and Nina both have lovely moments trying to figure out what love is and how to really share it with the right person. And as Sorn, Steffen Silvis does a great deal with his small part as the overlooked observer, bringing both comedy and pathos to his monologues, which are shared directly with the audience. But others barely scratch the surface of their characters, glossing over the desperation, lust and jealousy that should seep into every exchange.
This non-traditional play is aided greatly by a Keith Pitts’ clever scenic design, including black-and-white portraits of each of the characters lining one wall, lit with bare bulbs, and a similar portrait of Chekhov on the opposite wall, overseeing the production. And Ethan White’s sound design, which makes use of contemporary Russian pop songs, was irresistible.
Near the beginning of the show the affable Dev notes, “I was just saying to myself today, I could use a good site-specific performance event to spice up the fall.” If you share Dev’s desire, I suggest Stupid F*cking Bird.
