"The Seagull" is Anton Chekhov's first and, arguably, most beloved play. First produced in 1896, it was a notorious failure and caused Chekhov to consider abandoning his nascent playwriting career. But a successful remounting of the play by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavsky instead prompted Chekhov to attempt additional, even more experimental plays.
The story surrounds the love lives of the four main characters: semi-successful novelist Boris Trigorin; his lover, Irina Arkadina, a fading actress; Arkadina's son, the budding author Konstantin Treplev, and the young ingenue Nina Zarachnaya, who is torn between Trigorin and Treplev.
An ensemble piece, the play is peppered with fascinating and fully-realized secondary characters as well and has been hailed as one of the first "modern" plays, where the dialogue, characters, situations and resolutions are firmly based in realism.
"The Seagull" is one of the most performed and admired plays in history and is presented here in its original and unabridged format.