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Characters in the Play
Characters in the Play
Irina Nikolayevna Arkadin (Madame Treplev) (an actress)
Konstantin Gavrilovitch Treplev (her son, a young man)
Pyotr Nikolayevitch Sorin (her brother)
Nina Mihailovna Zaretchny (a young girl, the daughter of a wealthy landowner)
Ilya Afanasyevitch Shamraev (a retired lieutenant, Sorin’s steward)
Polina Andreyevna (his wife)
Masha (his daughter)
Boris Alexeyevitch Trigorin (a literary man)
Yevgeny Sergeyevitch Dorn (a doctor)
Semyon Semyonovitch Medvedenko (a schoolmaster)
Yakov (a labourer)
A Man Cook
A Housemaid
The action takes place in Sorin’s house and garden. Between the Third and the Fourth Acts there is an interval of two years.
The Seagull
The Seagull
A Comedy in Four Acts
Act I
Act I
Part of the park on Sorin’s estate. Wide avenue leading away from the spectators into the depths of the park towards the lake is blocked up by a platform roughly put together for private theatricals, so that the lake is not visible. To right and left of the platform, bushes. A few chairs, a little table.
Recites from Hamlet.
“Oh, Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.”
From Hamlet.
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff.”
Act II
Act II
A croquet lawn. The house with a big verandah in the background on the right, on the left is seen the lake with the blazing sun reflected in it.
Act III
Act III
The dining-room in Sorin’s house. Doors on right and on left. A sideboard. A medicine cupboard. A table in the middle of the room. A portmanteau and hatboxes; signs of preparation for departure. Trigorin is having lunch; Masha stands by the table.
Act IV
Act IV
One of the drawing-rooms in Sorin’s house, which has been turned into a study for Konstantin Treplev. On the right and left, doors leading to inner apartments. In the middle, glass door leading on to the verandah. Besides the usual drawing-room furniture there is, in corner on right, a writing-table, near door on left, a sofa, a bookcase and books in windows and on the chairs. Evening. There is a single lamp alight with a shade on it. It is half dark. There is the sound of the trees rustling, and the wind howling in the chimney. A watchman is tapping. Enter Medvedenko and Masha.