For some reason, Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" turned out to be the most popular play among the directors at the Theater Olympics. The interesting part about it was one could see a number of different interpretations of the play that more or less came close to the original. That this did not apply to everyone, however, was evidenced by a version in which the director, seemingly without an ounce of respect for what Chekhov had created, introduced his own interminable and not necessarily original ideas.

This was the Ukrainian Andrei Zholdak from the Theater of the Nations. The subtitle, "An Attempt To Develop the Play ‘The Seagull' Using the Stanislavsky Method," highlighted the play's genre. But even though Stanislavsky originated the first productions of "The Seagull" at the MKhAT Theater, of which he was a co-founder, Zholdak's version has no morein common with the Stanislavsky theatrical method than it has with Chekhov.

In the course of almost three hours, both the audience and the cast found themselves subjected to a veritable execution – the audience from the unbelievable cold in the auditorium (the play was performed in the unfinished MKhAT annex on Petrovsky perulok) – and the cast from the senseless things the director had asked them to do. And what did Zholdak not do with them: He had them blindfold their eyes; tape up their mouths; hit themselves against a closed door at the risk of getting hurt; drag heavy buckets filled with stones; and turn the stage upside-down with the help of ropes and workers.

As far as Chekhov's text was concerned, only scraps of phrases and bits of scenes that had been arbitrarily mixed up were all that remained. A number of people who did not know the original text were left in the dark, practically unable to understand a thing of what was going on.

Obviously, any, even the most radical directorial fantasy has the right to exist if it is logical and justified. In Zholdak's case, however, Arkadina's words in "The Seagull," "It has absolutely no form and only a bad character," seem to be the most apposite.

The only thing that saves the production is the acting by Yulia Rutberg (Arkadina), Alexander Yusov (Treplev) and Alexander Baluyev (Trigorin). These three actors, despite the director, manage to feel the essence of Chekhov's dramaturgy and give memorable and subtle performances. But the performance as a whole bears out the well-known practice that often occurs in the theater world: The louder the advertising, the more likely it is a failure. In any case, from an artistic point of view.