Tim Carroll’s “A Seagull” Jam Session – Thursday 15th of May 2008


I wish I could say this quietly under my breath, but as I am typing this it is rather difficult, oh well fuck it,
“I AM A FACTORY VIRGIN”, there I said it. God I feel like I am back playing “truth or dare” at 21 years old…..that was a typo, I meant 12 years old….anyway, yes, I am a factory virgin, so if anyone wants to correct this, disregard this, add to this or, (god forbid), heap praise upon this then please feel free.

On Thursday a large group of us, I am reliably informed, arrived at the Factory’s Religious Hub, to enjoy an evening’s examination of The Seagull led by the erudite Timothy Carroll.

To start off with we sat in a large circle and Timothy got acquainted with the names of many of the new faces, myself included, that had arrived on that Thursday evening. (Could I add now that if I get any names wrong in this you can please feel free to add any names of your choice or the names of the people that actually played the parts).

Tim then informed us that it was his idea to work on three particular scenes from The Seagull. The beginning of Act 1, a scene from Act 2 which involves Konstantin, Nina and Trigorin, and the final scene between Nina and Konstantin in Act 4.

After this Tim divided us up so that there were two groups of actor’s per section of text. These groups were then invited to break down another group’s scene into its action essentials. So Group 1 took charge of Group 2’s scene. Group 2 took charge of Group 3’s and Group 3 took charge of Group 1’s.

Tim advised us to try and give commands that were playable, and invited us to be as concise as we possibly could. This proved to be more difficult than we had imagined; and we laboured to find useful commands, which didn’t give too much information. But after 45 minutes we stopped writing and began to work on the scenes.

First up was the scene at the beginning of Act 2, between Nina, Konstantin and Trigorin. In this scene Elena played Nina, Tim played Konstantin and Charlie played Trigorin. It is difficult for me to comment on the scene as a whole as I was part of it. From being inside the scene the playing of it felt incredibly exciting, there was the dichotomy of feeling totally involved in what you are doing and then also feeling the temptation to check if the activity of the scene has changed. The real magic came when you were totally involved in playing one of the instructions when your partner suddenly threw in another one that had been revealed without your knowledge.

Next up was Group 3, with Nina played by Faye and Konstantin played by Max. This is a highly emotional scene and pretty long, but the two actor’s managed to keep the tension and excitement bubbling throughout the playing of it, demonstrated by all the wide eyed people watching.

There was a particular moment that was really powerful. Konstantin had the note, “K expresses his love and obsession with her”, and rather than just blurting this out Max found a way to represent this over an awkwardly long period of time. He first tried massaging Nina, and because she was turned away from him we were privy to the frustration and fear of his trying to express these strong emotions. Finally after an almost unbearably long period of time, he said, almost under his breath, “I think I love you.” Her lack of immediate affirmation told us all we needed to know about her feelings for him, and we were left like insatiable voyeurs feeding on a moment of real weakness and vulnerability.

Tim later said that this is a little like snuff theatre, and I think that this voyeuristic feeling is what he is referring to, where you want to look away because of the discomfort, but you cannot bear to in case you miss something exquisite.

In the final Group, who were playing Scene 1, Sorin was played by Jack, Masha by Marianne, Medvedenko by Rhys, Konstantin by Joe, and Nina by Sarah.

The scene began with Masha and Medvedenko on stage together. The first three instructions read; “Masha is unhappy”, “Masha and Medvedenko compete over who has the worse life”, “Masha can’t requite Medvedenko’s love”.

This became torturous and compelling in equal measure. At one point it seemed as if Rhys was leaving the stage, but he then returned with a new level of pandering towards Marianne. Finally with the last instruction, Marianne stuttered, “would you please jus…ssss….t…..go away.” This command had the perfect timbre of real dialogue. Later Tim commented on how this is the kind of magic you can get from this work when it becomes more than the sum of its parts, and when the speech’s become real, rather than played.

For me there was another wonderful moment. One of the final instructions was “Nina and Konstantin share an intimate kiss”, this was truly exciting, not only because I am a pervert, and you could really feel a ripple of excitement passing through the spectators.

The group in charge of changing the instructions also seemed to be in on the game as they prolonged the changing, which heightened the sexual energy more and more. Then when they finally did change the instruction, the change from Konstantin was really wonderful, a complete about face, which still carried all the excitement from the previous moment.

After this scene was finished we had a discussion about what we thought. All remarked on how wonderful the playing had been between the characters and how wonderfully alive each of the actors had looked in the space.

Tim also remarked on how this interpretation seemed closer to the Russian spirit of how they played Chekhov’s writing. In fact he remarked on how the Russian’s think our reverence for Chekhov is rather strange.

Some problems were also remarked upon; how we would like more information, the three w’s, how sometimes people get lost in looking for the next instruction. Tim remarked though that this can also happen in life, when you know something is coming before it actually happens.

In conclusion we thought that the beauty of doing it this way was that we see the reactions fresh minted, virgin, but the problem is that if it is ever played again this innocence is lost and people are burdened with the knowledge of what is coming. Tim then suggested, a little mischievously, that we could do a new play each time, Alex then suggested that the audience are told what the play is but the actor’s are unaware.

I think that we all agreed that the evening had been a great initial success and we wait with baited breath to hear how this project will progress.

We left the church, and out into the night on the mean streets of Caledonian Road, buzzing with excitement after a great evening’s investigation.



Charlie Cattral