The Seagull. Barbican Theatre.

Even good productions of The Seagull—and, yes, Thomas Ostermeier’s bold, much anticipated, modern-day take is immensely entertaining—can struggle with the tonal ambiguity in Chekhov’s masterpiece. Is this a comedy or a tragedy? Balancing humour, the anguish of unrequited love, and self-referential meta-musings over the value of theatre in an age of crisis is always a tough ask.

So ferocious is the in-your-face farce and polemic of some of this sold-out production’s early scenes, that one wonders whether Chekhov’s subtle characters, self-indulgent and naïve as they often are, will find breathing space. With an almost unstoppable flood of contemporary theatre trickery (vaping, swearing, texting, beer cans, quad bikes, and spoken stage directions amongst others) the production might struggle with lesser performers. That it works so well is down to a genuinely sublime cast, led by the spellbinding Cate Blanchett, which finds and mines the piece’s poignant human drama.

Celebrated actress Arkádina (larger-than-life Blanchett must surely garner an Olivier nomination here) and her sickly brother Peter (an impeccably droll Jason Watkins) pitch up at the family’s country estate for the weekend. Predictably, there is no phone signal and city-dweller Peter, who is “not used to getting my oxygen directly from the trees” is unhappy. “All I can hear are my thoughts, it’s a fucking nightmare” he tells us.  This being Chekhov, the man’s disenchantment pales beside the all-encompassing ennui of the self-obsessed and self-deceiving bunch he finds ensconced at the lakeside Dacha. Arkádina’s glum, monosyllabic lover Alex (Tom Burke), who writes the kind of books “people buy in airports”, hitches along for the ride.

Arkádina’s artsy Gen Z son Konstantin (an earnest, angry, angsty, Kodi Smit-McPhee) has prepared a piece of theatre for the visitors. It is a vehicle for the ambitious love-of-his-love Nina (Emma Corrin, both flirtatious and vulnerable), who lives next door, to star in. Dismissive of “the same fucking plays, over and over” his mother prefers, contemptuous of “cultural funding for anyone over 40”, Konstantin serves up a piece heavy on VR headsets, light on meaning and apparently live-streamed online. Arkádina dismisses it as “a sort of immersive Cirque du Soleil-thing”, a critique not guaranteed to appeal to her offspring’s sense of self-worth. Having found herself unable to “find a way in” to the character written for her, Nina soon finds herself attracted to successful, enigmatic Alex. The brittle mother/son relationship soon threatens to spiral into tragedy, but in fact all the relationships here fail in different ways.

Into the mix add Masha (Tanya Reynolds oozes sarcastic Goth introspection), the daughter of estate manager Ilya (Paul Higgins) and his wife Polina (Priyanga Burford), local GP Dr Dorn (Paul Bazely), and a factory worker Simon (Zachary Hart opens each act with stand-up and a Billy Bragg song). A cascading series of overlapping love triangles, unfulfilled desires, and mismatched affections lead to calamitous results. “I walk an hour to bask in your indifference”, Simon tells Masha, who loves Konstantin. It is a line any of the characters could justifiably say to any of the others. Aware of their unhappiness, each struggles to find a way to escape.

Blanchett’s Arkadina is a swirling hurricane of egotistical self-regard: a narcissistic, status-obsessed, hack actress who has forgotten how not to act. She wears a T-shirt with her own name imprinted on it; literally and metaphorically embodying a performer in the shell of a human being. It is a performance of jaw-dropping chutzpah and raw, enticing physicality; at one point Blanchett tap-dances into a split. But there is immense cruelty here too. “The cogs are turning, you’re thinking again” she says with brutal disdain to Misha. Even at the crisis point in her relationship with her son, Arkadina cannot escape the temptation to offer a fourth-wall breaking wink to the audience and fret over the fear that she is getting a cold sore.

Early on, Burke’s brooding, paired-back Alex fools us into thinking his artist-struggling-for-truth front is honest. Actually, the subdued facade is as much of an artifice as Arkadina’s emotional fireworks. Beneath, the man is weak, opportunistic and vacillating. Yet we see why Nina falls for him. As one of the characters bemoans, “the people we fall in love with and the idiots we end up with” are not necessarily the same.

Ostermeier places microphones on either side of the stage, which the characters approach and speak into, sotto voce, when delivering insights or thoughts. The house lights come up when Alex harangues us with a monologue on the essential pointlessness of theatre. The meta theatrics here may not suit those who prefer their Chekhov low-key and melancholy. Magda Willi’s set, a square of maize stalks set behind deck chairs, carries a feel of absurdism in place of Chekhovian realism.  This production may not be for purists. Everyone else will love it.

Writer:  Anton Chekhov, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier

Director:  Thomas Ostermeier