Paul Schmidt

THE SEAGULL

This title is now available worldwide.

THE SEAGULL

By Anton Chekhov

Translation by Paul Schmidt

The main characters, all artists, are guests at a country estate. They are Mme Arkadina, a middle-aged actress; her lover, Trigorin, a successful writer; her son Konstantin, a writer; and Nina, a young aspiring actress whom Konstantin loves. Mme Arkadina, jealous of Nina’s youth and promising career, acts cruelly and hatefully toward Konstantin, belittling his new play and withholding the approval he desperately seeks from her. Nina, impressed by Trigorin’s fame, ignores Konstantin, who kills a seagull and shows it to her, perhaps symbolically referring to his broken dreams. All four go their separate ways, but two years later they are reunited at the same estate. When Nina again rejects Konstantin, he destroys his writings and shoots himself while his mother, unaware, plays cards in another room.

Production Notes:

More information about THE SEAGULL is coming soon.


Check out this great Studio Theatre article on Paul Schmidt's masterful adaptations of Chekov HERE.

Adaptor

Paul Schmidt Actor, librettist, poet, translator, professor, and Russian scholar Paul Schmidt’s translation of Chekhov’s work have been praised as “the gold standard in Russian-English translation.”

Throughout his career, Schmidt worked in both the academy and professional theatre, translating the complete works of poets Arthur Rimbaud and Velemir Khlebnikov as well as translating works by Gogol, Brecht, and Marivaux for production. He worked extensively with American avant-garde directors, including Peter Sellars, JoAnne Akalaitis, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Robert Wilson. With Wilson and Tom Waits, he write the libretto for an opera adaptation of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

He did his first work with Chekhov with LeCompte, when she asked him to translate Three Sisters for the Wooster Group's... [FULL BIO]