Patrick Foley

Aside from the problem of which translation from the Russian to use, the  thorny problem with American productions of the plays of playwright Anton Chekhov is how to deal with the fact the author himself called them comedies but everyone from his early director Konstantin Stanislavski on has seen them as tragedies. Playwright Thomas Bradshaw has neatly solved both problems: in his new adaptation renamed "The Seagull/Woodstock, NY" which recasts the play as an updated modern comedy, he also made the play a very funny satire of today’s culture vultures, thespians and the literati. His version in which all of the names have been Anglicized makes Chekhov’s turn-of-the-last century play very accessible to contemporary audiences which is not often the case with Chekhov adaptations - without making drastic changes. In doing so, it makes whatever parody there was in the original of theater and literary icons of Chekhov’s time now understandable to today’s audiences due to updated references they can recognize. [more]