“If you ever need my life, come take it.” So wrote Trigorin, lover of the fading actress Arkadina, in his most famous book. Nina, a young ingénue and the beloved muse of Arkadina’s playwright son, Konstantin, absorbs this statement completely. When the two actresses — one young, and one aging — and the two writers — one successful, and one struggling — meet at the family estate one fateful summer, their loyalty, love, and ambition are put to the ultimate test. The first of Anton Chekhov’s realistic plays, The Seagull is a remarkable drama about passion, compromise, and the unknowable, untouchable concept of art.
The Seagull guide sections