“[The curtain rises to reveal a view of the lake, the moon on the horizon, its reflection in the water; Nina Zarechnaya is sitting on a large rock, all in white.]

Nina: Men, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fish which live in the water, starfish and organisms invisible to the eye – in short, all life, all life, all life has been extinguished after completing its sad cycle…For thousands of centuries the earth has not borne a single living being, and this poor moon lights her lantern to no purpose.  In the meadow the cranes give their waking cry no more and in May the cockchafers are no longer heard in the lime groves.  It is cold, cold, cold.  It is empty, empty, empty.  It is frightening, frightening, frightening.

[A pause.]

The bodies of living beings have turned into dust and eternal matter has changed them into stones, into water, into clouds, and all their spirits have merged into one. I…I am universal spirit…In me is the spirit of Alexander the Great and Caesar and Shakespeare and Napoleon, and that of the meanest leech.  In me human consciousness has merged with animal instinct, and I remember everything, everything, and every life I live out in myself anew.

[Marsh lights appear on the lake.]…

I am lonely. Once in a hundred years I open my mouth to speak, and my voice sounds dolefully in this emptiness and no one hears…And you, pale lights, do not hear me…Towards dawn the decaying marsh spawns you and you roam till dawn, but without thought, without will, without tremor of life. Afraid that life might begin in you, the father of eternal matter, the devil, changes your atoms every instant, like those of the rocks and the water, and you continuously change. Only one spirit in the universe remains constant and immutable.

[A pause.]

Like a prisoner cast into an empty deep well, I do no know where I am and what awaits me. It is only revealed to me that in the unyielding cruel fight with the devil, the principles of the forces of matter, I am destined to conquer, and therefore matter and spirit will blend in a beautiful harmony and there will come the kingdom of universal will. But this will only be when little by little, over a long sequence of millenia, the moon and bright Sirius will have turned to dust…But till then horror, horror” (Chekhov, 2002, 91-93).

It was through creating the visual aspect to the set of my performance that I could draw connections with Nina’s monologue from The Seagull. In wanting to create a space that is based on memories and on the act of remembering, somewhere away from the realities of the world, I cannot help but draw comparisons to the character of Nina and the set of the play in which she is acting.  For The Seagull, Chekhov uses a play within a play device that builds a multi-dimensional layer as to the interpretation of the piece.  The ethereal nature of the monologue, based on existence, draws me to look at how I can use and structure my dialogue.  From this monologue, I gather the feeling that Nina is talking about a life outside of herself which gives her character a 3 dimensional outlook on life.  It is as if she is alive but looking down on herself at the same time and I guess this is what I’m trying to create myself in my performance.  By looking into my past for autobiographical memories, memories that can be shared and relatable to the audience in their essence, i.e. ‘the first time I…’ it is recreating a sense of childhood whilst maintaining a sense of immediacy in the present.

Reference:

Chekhov, A. (2002) Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.  Translated from Russian by Peter Carson.  London: Penguin Classics.