Chekhov’s masterpiece “Seagull” was set yesterday evening within the drama programme of the 62nd Ohrid Summer Festival, directed by Nela Vitoshevikj and performed by the professional actors from NI Turkish Theatre – Skopje.
On the stage of the Centre of Culture “Grigor Prlichev” there was presented the transience of life in a mosaic of characters with failed lives, unhappy faiths, unreturned loves, put in some life circumstances which they cannot cope with.
-We tried to find the modern context in order to get the modern aspect of the “Seagull” and thus opened two important topics. The first one was the conflict between two generations, older and younger, as well as the consequences of unreturned love. We tried to put accent on how older generations break the dreams of the young and how they kill the child in us in a way. Actors easily got the point, and we started researching in that direction and I think that, no matter how difficult the text is, we easily got to the direction we had discussed and to some scenes, solutions etc, and at the end we made a work of art we are all proud of, says the director Vitoshevikj.
This is her first collaboration with NI Turkish Theatre – Skopje, and, as she said, “Seagull” is a work she had wanted to direct since her student’s days.
– I was waiting for the opportunity and conditions where I can complete it in the best possible way. When I got the call from the Turkish theatre for cooperation, I immediately remembered this work because the Turkish Theatre has an incredible team of actors. Each day is a new story and each day is very serious in terms of what is done on stage. I thought that such a good ensemble would be ideal to set “Seagull” with, because Chekhov writes studies about his character firstly, and that is why my choice was “Seagull” with the Turkish theatre, explains Vitoshevikj.
The main character of irina Nikolaevna Arkadina Trepljova is played by the extraordinary actress Nesrin Tair who showed once again that she is one of our best actresses.
-“Seagull” is a play of love and theatre, but Nela has some kind of a breach of Chekhov. The play itself, however cult and written in a tragi-comical way, has been modernized by the director. All characters in “Seagull” are put in life circumstances we can or cannot cope with, and in the process of creation we separate them from the aspect of making them more eccentric. Her morern, urban aesthetics she bears as director was very quickly and well accepted by the professional actors in our theatre, pointed out the actress Tair.
According to her, Chekhov is still modern because his plays are visible in the everyday life.
-Chekhov is my favourite author and I think that it is a Master Thesis in a way when an actor works on his play. I think that because of the mere fact that in the past two months we were going through a process of life situations and such types of lines he expresses and seemingly, nothing happens in his plays, but, in fact, there is a huge depth in many situations and events. At the beginning I felt really badly because I didn’t like that we are breaking Chekhov. I feel Chekhov as a contemporary, omnipresent, I see his plays in daily life, but after Nela made the play, I saw that her point was to dig into our personal lives a bit, which Viktorija Rangelova made dramatically perfect. Everything was different. We added a piece of our lives to Chekhov, how much modern he was for his time, as much we and how much we have similar situations nowadays, but don’t have such plays, so we can put them as instances from the aspect that generation gaps are still present an so on, explained the actress Nesrin Tair.
NI Turkish Theatre – Skopje is often guest at Ohrid Summer Festival and always brings the best theatre plays on it.
