The Seagull

Anton Chekhov

Apr 2013 · L.A. Theatre Works · Narrated by Calista Flockhart, T.R. Knight, Josh Stamberg, and Full Cast

About this audiobook

Translated by Christopher Hampton. Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is considered one of his most haunting and atmospheric character studies. A would-be playwright is at war with his egoistic mother while the town has become intoxicated by a sensational author.

And as the alluring newcomer steals away Kosta’s only love, their new romance could have devastating consequences.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance. Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Recorded by L.A. Theatre Works before a live audience.

Public Domain (P)2013 L.A. Theatre Works

Ratings and reviews

Formidable play!

About the author

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the provincial town of Taganrog, Ukraine, in 1860. In the mid-1880s, Chekhov became a physician, and shortly thereafter he began to write short stories. Chekhov started writing plays a few years later, mainly short comic sketches he called vaudvilles. The first collection of his humorous writings, Motley Stories, appeared in 1886, and his first play, Ivanov, was produced in Moscow the next year. In 1896, the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg performed his first full- length drama, The Seagull. Some of Chekhov's most successful plays include The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and Three Sisters. Chekhov brought believable but complex personalizations to his characters, while exploring the conflict between the landed gentry and the oppressed peasant classes. Chekhov voiced a need for serious, even revolutionary, action, and the social stresses he described prefigured the Communist Revolution in Russia by twenty years. He is considered one of Russia's greatest playwrights. Chekhov contracted tuberculosis in 1884, and was certain he would die an early death. In 1901, he married Olga Knipper, an actress who had played leading roles in several of his plays. Chekhov died in 1904, spending his final years in Yalta.