Jennifer Chung Klam

San Diego Arts

'La Gaviota' at The Lab

Viva la seagull
By Jennifer Chung Klam
Posted on Apr 23 2008
Last updated Apr 23 2008

Love and art collide in Ion Theatre’s sprawling, ambitious world premiere production of “La Gaviota,” based on Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull.” The result is predictably lengthy and occasionally messy, but often insightful, humorous and poetic.

Ion artistic director and playwright Claudio Raygoza certainly has a way with words. As he demonstrated in last year’s “Punks,” adapted from Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” Raygoza’s command of language ranges from the lyrical to the colloquial, frequently traversing the spectrum with fluidity.

This time, he moves Chekov’s comi-tragedy to Mexico, on the eve of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

“La Gaviota” has left Chekov’s characters fairly intact, and also follows the general storyline of “The Seagull.” A family retreats to a seaside estate – Matt Scott and Raygoza's lovely hacienda-by-the-beach set – and tries to ignore the growing civil unrest, mirrored in their own tormented relationships.While the plot may be too convoluted to adequately explain, the play lacks much real action, not unlike “The Seagull.” Major plot points happen off-stage, with dialogue devoted to idle chatter, philosophical musings, debates and exclamations of boredom – in other words, the life of the privileged.

Their intriguing debates in the first act about the nature of art, artistic form and progress continue to rage on in universities and cafes, and among artists the world over. Raygoza deftly wields his acerbic wit when it comes to discussions about the theater and the writing process (and reviewers, natch).

At the heart of the play is a quartet of artists who form a sticky love quadrangle. Nico, an aspiring filmmaker, is in love with Nina, who longs to be an actress like Irene, Nico’s famous mother. Unfortunately for Nico, Nina falls in love with Alejandro, Irene’s lover and a celebrated novelist. Add to this an Oedipal relationship between Nico and mom, the misplaced and unrequited love of several minor characters and a secret love child, and you start to see how knotty – and primed for tragedy – the situation is. Director Glenn Paris does mine the humor in the play, underscoring the characters’ folly and silly preoccupations in a time of war.

The play was written with Linda Castro in mind as Irene, the actress who commands fawning attention from those around her. The role is Castro’s first on a San Diego stage since leaving for Cleveland a few years ago. Her Irene is an elegant ball of melodramatic fire, in Judy Watson’s handsome period costumes. Irene is charming and vicious, insecure, egotistical, needy and self-absorbed, an aging prima donna clinging desperately to youth and beauty. She is –what else – a diva.

As her younger lover, Raygoza is adrift and deeply unsatisfied, but doesn’t seem malicious enough to plan the destruction of an innocent girl out of sheer boredom. Sara Beth Morgan, as that innocent girl, is wide-eyed and star-struck, making her transformation by play's end all the more striking.

But it is Steven Lone as Nico that commands attention in this play. His portrayal of the impetuous artist burning with more ambition than talent buzzes with desire. Insecurities and fury percolate, especially in the tension between Nico and his mother. There’s more than one drama queen in this tale. In one emotionally taut scene, mother and son spar over Alejandro – Nico’s Oedipal jealousies pushing to the fore other issues of family histories, lies and artistic pretensions.

Yet Lone andMorgan's final exchangeas failed former loverslacks the fire that might believably lead to suicide. That’s true of many of the emotionally driven scenes.

Among the supporting cast, Bernard Baldan as Irene’s brother and John Padilla as the easygoing family doctor do well as voices of reason in an increasingly histrionic family. Trina Kaplan, as the family matriarch, gets many of the play’s humorous lines, and Catalina Maynard is both tender and tough as the housekeeper. John Garcia, Estrella Esparza-Johnson, Matthew Evanoff and Matt Scott round out the cast.

“La Gaviota” is essentially a story about everyday tragedies and how people respond to them – some endure, some do not. But as much character development as there is, it’s a wonder we don’t care about them more.

Despite the universal themes and shared human experiences of love, betrayal, loss and rejection, it’s hard to find empathy for these characters or to see them as more than just privileged intellectuals who take themselves too seriously.

At nearly three hours, including an interlude in which a canopy structure is erected (seemingly for the sole purpose of silhouetting the suicide), the play would benefit from trimming. Editing some dialogue and subplots would allow more focus on the major themes and characters.

“La Gaviota” feels like a grand work in progress lobbing some grand ideas and themes. But it will need to be more focused, and its characters more connected to the audience, to really soar.

About the author: Jennifer Chung Klam is an editor at The Daily Transcript and a freelance arts and culture writer.
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