ARTicles vol. 7 i. 3: An Introduction to The Seagull and Endgame

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the American Repertory Theatre.

As we begin this New Year, I am eagerly anticipating my first year of programming for the 09/10 season.  Since my days as an undergraduate at Harvard, the A.R.T. has inspired me as a home for the most profound, exciting theater in America and I am honored to continue this legacy of exceptional work.  I look forward to sharing these plans with you in the coming months.

As director of the 08/09 season, Gideon Lester has chosen two of the greatest plays in the canon for our stage –The Seagull by Anton Chekhov and Endgame by Samuel Beckett. I am delighted to join you as an audience member for these productions.

Thank you for your invaluable support of the theatre.

With deepest gratitude,
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director

Dear Friends,

Welcome to winter at the A.R.T. This season we explore two classics – Chekhov’s The Seagull and Beckett’s Endgame. Both plays were groundbreaking in their own time, and both still stand as masterpieces of twentieth-century drama.

The Seagull was Anton Chekhov’s first major success as a playwright and introduced Russian audiences to a new style of theatre: realism. The subject of the play is partly the theatre itself; it dramatizes the entangled lives of two actresses, the seasoned Arkadina (played by Karen MacDonald) and the ingénue Nina, and their complex relationships with Arkadina’s son Treplev, himself an experimental playwright.

Our Seagull is being staged by János Szász, the Hungarian director whose emotionally lush and visually spectacular productions for the A.R.T. have included Mother Courage, Marat/Sade, Desire Under the Elms, and his unforgettable Uncle Vanya. His Seagull promises similar thrills and will remind us that beneath the realistic surface of Chekhov’s play lies a haunting beauty and poetry waiting to be released.

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is one of the most beautiful, enigmatic, and absurdly funny plays in the canon. It is built as a kind of riddle, in which many meanings can be found – or, Beckett would probably prefer to say, no meaning.

The play is set in a single spare room and has only four characters: Hamm, blind and confined to a wheelchair; Clov, Hamm’s servant, who is mysteriously unable to sit down; and Hamm’s two ancient parents, Nagg and Nell, who are living out their final days in two trashcans.

Endgame owes as much to vaudeville and the commedia dell’arte as it does to existential philosophy, and it can be downright hilarious in the right hands. The humor of Beckett’s text will be perfectly served by comic geniuses of our resident acting company – Will LeBow, Karen MacDonald, Tommy Derrah, and Remo Airaldi.

The production will be directed by Marcus Stern, who has a gift for stunning stage pictures and whose recent shows at the A.R.T. have included Donnie Darko and The Onion Cellar. The combination of Marcus, our Company actors, and Beckett’s great text will make this a truly memorable Endgame. And in good time; the play hasn’t been staged at the A.R.T. since 1984.

Together The Seagull and Endgame offer you two great plays, two visionary directors, and leading roles for a group of outstanding actors. I hope you have a wonderful time.

Best wishes,
Gideon Lester
Director, 08/09 Season

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