Tonight we (the hausmates + I) saw the A.R.T.’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, a play that is both meta and hysterical to the extreme. Fortunately, both aspects were tempered with a healthy dose of self-awareness (so it was even kinda meta-meta), and therefore it was completely worthwhile, if a little exhausting.

The play starts with a play-within-a-play. A precocious but decidedly misunderstood young playwright tries to put on a play to impress his egotistical actress-mother and to win the heart of his leggy true love. The play goes on to involve these characters and other countryside families/acquaintances in the most geometrically complex of love polygons, resulting in 150 hardcore minutes of screaming, feelings-declaring, angst-wracked writhing, suitcase-launching, shooting, and also, at one point, air-guitaring to Guns ‘n Roses Sweet Child of Mine. Oh, and puddles. Splashing through, kneeling in, dragging selves across, and lying fetal-style in puddles—a wonderful continuation of A.R.T.’s tradition of having fantastic set designs. (Remember that car from Julius Caesar?)

At the end of the 2.5 hours, we were were all mentally and physically spent. It was the kind of play that tests your endurance. The melodramatic theater fluff was definitely masterfully executed. Especially Karen MacDonald—as of this play I have now seen her play 2 tragically delusional middle-aged femme fatales to perfection. So at first it was easy to find the humor in the clichés and satirical portrayal of 19th century popular theater. But slowly, as the plot drew you in and you slowly realized these characters aren’t going to find any sort of redemption whatsoever, it was just kind of… crushing, actually. In the end, no one finds true love. No one realizes their artistic hopes. No one ends up living the life they hoped for (except for Nina. Maybe. But it was actually kind of hard to read her character because the actress had a kind of flat, Emma-Thompson, Angels in America way of intoning everything). Nearly everyone ends up spiritually alone, resigned to brutal reality, and/or dead. And everyone ended up soaked.

You’re probably not supposed to care that much about the plot or the characters, but instead you’re supposed to look at the entire play as a tentatively Symbolist experiment concocted at a time when theater was trying to reconfigure itself and “find new forms.” But from my standpoint that’s kind of impossible. Right as the proverbial curtains were drawn and we stood up to leave, Jess said to me, “Man, now I never want to be an artist.” According to this play, if you want to be groundbreaking, you’re only going to end up emotionally strangled/creatively stifled/unrequited/unforgiven/alone/ultimately shot. Sure, you’ll be the only one in mid-19th-century Russia with a Macbook Pro, but I mean… doesn’t seem worth it, yeah?

It was a good theatrical experience nonetheless. (Yang is slowly collecting all of the A.R.T. program booklets in his jacket pocket. So far we’ve got 3… A.R.T. has been nothing short of awesome so far, so we’re hoping for more.)

Afterwards we went to Charlie’s and shared 2 plates of waffle fries, a plate of buffalo wings, and a plate of mozzarella sticks. It was the most disgustingly gratifying dinner I ever had. Mmm, bar snaxxxx, chased down with [root] beer (hey, it can be an effective social lubricant) and loud yelling over the music. Late-night bar-going is fun in moderation. I think this was my first time, honestly, out past 11 at a bar, but it was pretty much what I thought it would be. Wouldn’t do it everyday, but I now see why people enjoy it so.