Berger Park North Mansion/Photo: Thomas Wayda
Writing about the nature of ancient Greek theater, Nietzsche dropped this bombshell: “The chorus is a living bulwark against the onsets of reality, because it portrays existence more truthfully, more realistically, more perfectly than the cultured man who ordinarily considers himself as the only reality.” People knew that the actors were actors, men parroting words from a script, but the chorus, a group of performers who sang, danced and provided commentary on the play’s action, made the actors’ performances more believable. The power of art to make reality even more real feels like magic, an observation that prompted Nietzsche to label the process of making art as “the properly metaphysical activity of this life.”
This September, Instrumental Theatre Company seeks to make magic happen in their adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” directed by founder Skylar Grieco, featuring an original score composed by the cast and music director, Jack Morsovillo, performed live by the actors. The play takes place at the historic Berger Park Mansion, a 116-year-old stately home in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood that overlooks Lake Michigan. This experimental adaptation connects music, storytelling and ambiance to craft a truly immersive theatergoing experience.
Chekhov’s “The Seagull” is a tragicomedy that expresses themes of unfulfilled desires, the struggles of artistic life and existential disappointment. The story follows a group of artists and their admirers as they experience unrequited love and artistic discontent. Young writer Konstantin, in love with the aspiring actress Nina, tries to win her over by killing a seagull, but she instead leaves with his mother’s lover, the successful writer Trigorin. Two years later, a broken Nina returns after a failed career and the loss of her child, but she rejects Konstantin, leading to the play’s unforgettable climax.
The “instrumental” in Instrumental Theatre Company is an intended pun, but their reasoning for adding music to this classic work is no joke. “Chekhov described his characters as people who never say what they fully mean,” says Grieco, “stuttering up to a moment but not saying the end of their thought. The music fills in the scene where their words fail.” The music, played by the actors in-scene and on a variety of instruments—guitar, violin, accordion, ukulele, cajón drum, tambourine, thundertube and more— provides compositions both diegetic and non-diegetic, tailored to Instrumental’s original adaptation of the script. “It’s important that the music supports the story,” says Grieco, “and to know when a moment is being supported by the music, or when the music becomes the moment.”
Setting the play at Berger Park Mansion creates an atmosphere that is both hyper-realistic and surreal. The opening scene, where Konstantin reveals his new experimental play, staged in front of the lake on his uncle’s estate, is realized literally, with an expansive view of Lake Michigan as the backdrop and the sky as the proscenium. The rest of the play takes place inside the mansion, where attendees become like voyeurs eavesdropping on juicy conversations that take place anywhere from six inches to two rooms away but always within eyeline and earshot. “So much of this play is about the little conversations between two characters that happen when everyone else leaves the room,” says Grieco, “We want the audience to feel like they have stuck around after the party’s over, when everyone’s left, but they’re still getting to hear it all. They’re the fly on the wall.” You can expect actors to disappear and reappear from behind furniture and fixtures and emerge at opposite ends of the room via a concealed passageway. Decorated with original woodwork and lit by antique light fixtures, the setting gives the illusion that one is present at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Instrumental’s innovative take on Chekhov extends to the characters’ motivations being reimagined through a modern lens. For Levi Denton-Hughes, playing the lead role of Konstantin, who suffers from extreme vacillations of emotion, the part is personal. “I am bipolar,” says Denton-Hughes. “Konstantin’s emotional flip-flopping, even his resolution at the end of the play, I have literally been in those circumstances. I read this and I’m like, holy shit, this is incredibly relatable top to bottom.” Denton-Hughes also lauds Instrumental for casting him, a trans actor, into the role, giving Konstantin a completely different backstory to what has previously been explained or presented.
Konstantin’s love interest, Nina, is often portrayed as a tragic character, a naïve young woman who falls prey to an older man and succumbs to the life of a starving artist. But actor Ruby Gibson doesn’t see it that way. Instead, she plays Nina with agency and a lust for life. “Nina is a survivor,” says Gibson. “She’s really smart, has a lot of agency, makes her own mistakes instead of having other people make bad decisions to her.” While many see Nina’s affair with the older Trigorin as between prey and predator, Gibson denies that Nina is a victim. “She goes through all these trials and still one of the last things she says is, ‘When I think of art, I’m not afraid of life.’ I think that that’s not a tragedy at all!”
Living art, fleeting and ephemeral, is the metaphysical substratum that connects the physical world to the realm of the imagination. “The Seagull” promises to transport the audience into the world of the play, where Chekhov’s characters come to life as never before, the realization of Instrumental Theatre Company’s mission to inspire harmony through ensemble storytelling crafted at the intersection of actors and musicians.
“The Seagull” presented by Instrumental Theatre Company runs September 11-27 at Berger Park Mansion (North Building), 6205 North Sheridan. Tickets are $20, available at instrumentaltheatre.org.
