by Tennessee Williams
A free adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.
Directed by Phil Willmott.
Designed by Kim Alwyn and Aimee Sajjan-Servaes. Lighting Design by Peter Bragg. Costume Design by Penn O’Gara.
Produced by The Steam Industry and Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre
By special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
Cast includes: Carolyn Backhouse. Stephen Billington. Lachele Carl. Richard Franklin. Andrea Hall. Rob Heaps. Morgan James. Samara MacLaren. Daniel Norford.

The London Premiere
**** Four Stars WhatsOnStage

Spring Season 2010 – Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Finborough Theatre
30 March – 24 April 2010

“Two corresponding obsessions – two people devoted to art – But I have to escape them if I’m ever to accomplish my life . . . Surely you understand. What don’t you understand?...”

The London premiere of The Notebook of Trigorin, Tennessee Williams' free adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by former Finborough Theatre Artistic Director Phil Willmott in his 12th production for the venue, celebrates both the theatre’s 30th anniversary year and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov.

Boasting a callously bisexual Trigorin, a particularly ferocious Arkadina and an especially long suffering Constantine, Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin is an intensely personal response to Chekhov’s The Seagull that has more to say about the highs and lows of a lifetime in American Theatre then 19th Century Russia.
Chekhov’s masterpiece is the story of an actress, her family and estate. Beginning with her son’s attempts to win respect it charts his eclipse of the fading careers around him, the emotional deterioration of their household and culminates in disillusionment and tragedy.

As a struggling young writer Tennessee Williams was haunted by The Seagull and throughout his life he often spoke of adapting it. Just two years before his death, he finally realised his dream when the University of British Columbia sponsored a production of The Notebook of Trigorin at the Vancouver Playhouse in 1981 – at a time when Williams was at war with the critics and wracked by the drink and drugs he used to ward off loneliness and despair.

Award-winning director Phil Willmott roots the action of The Notebook of Trigorin in Tennessee Williams’ world, providing an intimate insight into a great playwright’s life-long love affair with one play and reflecting a career that gave him everything, broke his heart and left him in pieces.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was one of the world's most celebrated playwrights, and the winner of numerous awards including two Pulitzer Prizes and four New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. Born in Columbus, Mississippi, his works include The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Not About Nightingales, Summer and Smoke, Suddenly Last Summer, Camino Real, Lovely and Misfit and The Night of the Iguana. Previous sell-out Finborough Theatre productions of his work include the UK professional premiere of Something Cloudy, Something Clear and the sell-out triple bill – Blue Heaven, comprising Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry, This Property is Condemned and Auto-Da-Fë – in February 2009.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) first turned to writing as a medical student at Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1884. Among his early plays were short monologues (On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, 1886) and one-act farces such as The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding (1888-1889). His first three full-length plays, Ivanov (1887), The Wood Demon (1889) and The Seagull (1896) were failures when first staged. But the Moscow Art Theatre’s revival of The Seagull, two years later was successful, and was followed by his masterpieces, Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard in 1904, the year of his death from tuberculosis.

Director Phil Willmott is Artistic Director of The Steam Industry, owners of the Finborough Theatre since 1994. He has staged more productions at the venue then any other director including acclaimed revivals of Pinero’s Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ and Country Magic, Galsworthy’s Loyalties, his new adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths (recently published by Oberon Books) and the sell-out F**king Men which transferred to the Kings Head and Arts Theatre breaking records as London's longest running Off West End hit . He is a recipient of a TMA Award for outstanding production of a musical, a Peter Brook Award for his outdoor productions of classical plays and family shows at The Scoop on London's South Bank and a recent "Best Regional Theatre" Whatsonstage nomination for his work at Liverpool Playhouse.

The cast includes Carolyn Backhouse, Stephen Billington, Lachele Carl, Richard Franklin, Andrea Hall, Rob Heaps, Morgan James, Samara Maclaren, Daniel Norford.
Carolyn Backhouse’s theatre credits include A Busy Day (Lyric Theatre), A Dream of People (Royal Shakespeare Company), Entertaining Angels (Theatre Royal Bath), Greenwash, Leaving, Larkin With Women (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Hobson’s Choice (Chichester Festival Theatre), An Ideal Husband (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), National Hero (National Tour), The David Hare Trilogy, Private Lives, Closer (Birmingham Rep), Colombe (Salisbury Playhouse), The Magistrate (Savoy Theatre), Educating Rita, Oleanna (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), Mrs Warren’s Profession, Hobson’s Choice and Rebecca (all National Tours). Film includes Scoop and Robin Hood. Television includes Midsomer Murders, Blue Murder, The Bill, Rosemary and Thyme, Brides in the Bath and Heroes and Villains.
Stephen Billington has previously appeared twice at the Finborough Theatre – in Pains of Youth (2001) and F***ing Men (2008). Other theatre credits include Troilus and Cressida, Macbeth, The White Devil (Royal Shakespeare Company), Romeo and Juliet (Ludlow Festival), Far From the Madding Crowd (National Tour), Much Ado About Nothing (Liverpool Playhouse), Who Killed Mr Drum? (Riverside Studios), Mean Tears (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), The Miser (Salisbury Playhouse), Strangers on a Train (Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and National Tour), Corpus Christi (Pleasance Edinburgh), Our Betters (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Gabriel (Soho Theatre). Film includes Exorcismus, Oh Happy Day, Exitz, The Tulse Luper Suitcases: From Sark to the Finish, Prophecy IV, Resident Evil, Callas Forever, Dracula 2: Resurrection and Braveheart. Television includes Wild West: Custer’s Last Stand, Doctors, The Inquisition, Young Arthur, Relic Hunter, Queen of Swords, Highlander: The Raven, Coronation Street, Jonathan Creek, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Out of the Blue, Rules of Engagement, Space Precinct and The Buccaneers.
Lachele Carl's theatre includes 900 Oneonta Street (Old Vic), Moon on a Rainbow Shawl (Almeida Theatre), Eden (Riverside Studios) and Carmen (Suzuki Company of Toga, Japan). Film includes Alien Autopsy, A Kiss Before Dying and Superstition.
Television includes The Philanthropist, Torchwood, Dr Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, M.I. High, Inside Waco, Murder in Mind, The Comfort Zone, My Beautiful Son, History File, Lodestar, Wit and The Gift. Radio includes The Glittering Prizes, American Voices, Rajeah, A Raisin in the Sun, A Thousand Acres and Disappearing Acts.
Richard Franklin’s theatre credits include Loyalties (Finborough Theatre), Same Time Next Year (Prince of Wales Theatre), As You Like It (Vaudeville Theatre), The Woman in Black (Fortune Theatre), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Upstairs at the Gatehouse and King’s Head Theatre), One Night in November (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), Cinderella (Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage and Grand Opera House, York), Dick Whittington (Tameside Hippodrome), The Importance of Being Earnest (English Speaking Theatre, Frankfurt), Capulet (King’s Head Theatre), Spider’s Web (National Tour) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (International Tour). Writing includes The Killing Stone, The Cage, The Trial of Johnny Bull, Dr Weird and the Amazing Box and The Kween’s Speech. Film includes Feedback. Television includes Doctor Who, Crossroads and Emmerdale. Radio includes The Father Gilbert Mysteries.
Andrea Hall’s theatre credits include Talkin’ Loud (Latchmere Theatre), Sta’m (Gate Theatre), Abena’s Stupidest Mistake (The Drill Hall), Hyacinth Blue (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Unexplored Regions (Encompass New Opera Theatre), Palace of Fear (Leicester Haymarket), Large Tales (Nottingham Playhouse), Grass Windows of the Gulf, The Second Noel, Big Times, Bloodlet (Yaa Asantewaa Arts and Community Centre), Sweat (The Space), Red All Over (Lewes Live Literature Festival), Mind Your Head (Futures Theatre Company) and Breaking News (Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company).
Rob Heaps trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His theatre credits include Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (National Theatre), Elder Latimer is in Love (Arcola Theatre), Dracula (Edinburgh Festival), Passport to Pimlico, Days of Significance, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Mad World My Masters, Twelfth Night, Epsom Wells, The Duchess of Malfi, Absolute Hell and The Cherry Orchard (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). Film includes Bright Star. Radio includes Cruickshank on New Zealand and Skin.
Morgan James’ theatre credits include F***ing Men (Finborough Theatre), Women Beware Women (Royal Shakespeare Company), 1,60,3600 (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), The Passion Plays (Old Vic), Winged, One Summer (Tristan Bates Theatre), Richard III (Pleasance Theatre), Hamlet (Theatre Museum), The Witch of Edmonton (Southwark Playhouse), Nine the Musical (Royal Festival Hall), Side by Side by Sondheim (Union Theatre), The Phantom of the Opera, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (National Tour), Riverdance (World Tour) and Company (Dublin).
Samara MacLaren’s theatre credits include Charley’s Aunt (Vienna’s English Theatre), Body Builders, Fathers and Sons, Loveplay, Still, The Recruiting Officer, All’s Well That Ends Well, Angels in America, The Changeling, The Seagull, The Way of the World and Colder Than Here (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). Television includes Lip Service, Merlin and Walter’s War.
Daniel Norford’s theatre credits include Multiplex (York Theatre Royal Youth Company), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Footprints Theatre Company), Frontline, Tartuffe, The Mob, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Smile, A Month in the Country, Commedia Dell’arte, An Inspector Calls, Measure for Measure, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and A View from the Bridge (East 15 Acting School).

The Press on The Notebook of Trigorin
“Notebook brims with the maturity of an ageing writer in the final season of life....[It] achieves its greatest power when understood as the last notebook of a great American writer.” The Colombus Dispatch
“Williams transforms the story into a new American work. Williams indeed ‘endured his vocation’ to make Chekhov’s classic play into a powerful contemporary drama.” Cincinnati City Beat
“Though the storyline is mostly Chekhov's – with a few variations – the sensibility and the language is all Tennessee, lovely and lilting and poignant at points. The strength of the play lies in characterizations so vivid that they live on in the imagination long after the lights have dimmed. Williams renders his characters more sharply than Chekhov.” Curtainup.com
“Williams made The Notebook of Trigorin a trip deeper into the shadow of the human soul than Chekhov's.” my.en.com
“The voices of two great playwrights a century apart are joined in one work of art.” Allean Hale

The Press on The Notebook of Trigorin at the Finborough Theatre

**** FOUR STARS, WhatsOnStage.com

“Arkadina, Trigorin, Constantine, Nina – the names may be familiar, as may the cream linen suits and the air of longing and enforced languor. The name on the script, however, is not Anton Chekhov, but Tennessee Williams. Williams nursed a lifelong love of Chekhov’s The Seagull and towards the end of his life he wrote this poignant “free adaptation” of the Russian masterpiece, now given its London premiere by the enterprising little Finborough Theatre.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“A terrific find” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“Fascinating” Fiona Mountford, London Evening Standard

“Fascinating” Natasha Tripney, The Stage

“Phil Willmott’s production of this intriguing yet difficult play is compelling” Natasha Tripney, The Stage

“Willmott’s sensitive production, steeped in the sweltering atmosphere and sing-song delivery of Williams’ dramatic world, has itself the feel of a dream play…With its mix of rueful pain, biting wit and stultifying melancholy, the production presents a fascinating meeting of creative minds.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“Here's something that is at the very least a fascinating oddity - a late Tennessee Williams play, unproduced in his lifetime, that is his take on Chekhov's Seagull - and one that will interest lovers of both Williams and Chekhov” Gerald Berkowitz, Theatre Guide London

“The Notebook of Trigorin is a big surprise. Tennessee Williams made no secret of his love for the work of Anton Chekhov, yet this reworking of The Seagull from the end of Williams's life remains barely known and rarely performed in this country. Back again at his old stamping ground near Earls Court, director Phil Willmott is giving the 30-year-old play its London première.” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“It might sound like one of those parlour games that you find on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue where performers are asked to re-write Chekhov in the style of Tennessee Williams but The Notebook of Trigorin is very much more than that.” Philip Fisher, The British Theatre Guide

“Tennessee Williams was always haunted by The Seagull. But few of us knew that he had done his own free adaptation of Chekhov's play, premiered in Vancouver in 1981 and now enterprisingly unearthed by Phil Willmott” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Strangely, this excellent version of The Seagull, written in the thirty years until the writer's death in 1983, is only now enjoying its British premiere, thanks to the vision of Phil Willmott.” Philip Fisher, The British Theatre Guide

“An intriguing collector's item” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“The Notebook of Trigorin is a great discovery for both Phil Willmott and the ever enterprising Finborough. While it has taken a considerable time to get to the UK, it seems almost certain that this satisfying play will become a staple for theatres over here, with its combined appeal to fans of two of today's best-loved playwrights.” Philip Fisher, The British Theatre Guide

“There are moments when Williams's preoccupations coincide with Chekhov's: most especially in Nina's heartfelt cry that "what's important is only to go on". Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Willmott's production contains well-realised performances from Stephen Billington as a guilt-ridden rigorin, Carolyn Backhouse as an age-conscious Arkadina and Rob Heaps as a troubled Constantine.” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“The drama is dusted over with the humid sensuality, febrile energy and musical Southern twang that we associate with Williams and the tilt of the drama is slightly different.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“It is brave of the Finborough to produce this play in such a miniscule space and yet cast and stage it so well. It is also part of its glory in discovering unknown plays of famous writers or premiere American and European best sellers. Amazing the energy of this dynamic theatre that scoops up prizes to keep it afloat.” Blanche Marvin, London Theatre Reviews

“Richard Franklin’s movingly vulnerable Sorin” Edward Lukes, The London Magazine

“Richard Franklin, who makes a really sympathetic and wholly convincing Sorin” Philip Fisher, The British Theatre Guide

“Wonderfully cantankerous performance from Richard Franklin as the elderly Sorin.” Kevin E.G. Perry, musicOMH

“Richard Franklin is touching as Sorin” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“This superb cast…Their combined efforts more than make this production worth seeing and the play itself offers fascinating insights into both Chekhov and Williams.” Edward Lukes, The London Magazine

“Stephen Billington makes Trigorin more approachable and sympathetic than most players of the Chekhov version are able to” Gerald Berkowitz, Theatre Guide London

“Stephen Billington plays him as a mixture of suave confidence and restless contempt for himself and his life.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“Stephen Billington’s Trigorin is suitably ambiguous” Natasha Tripney, The Stage

“Rob Heaps nicely captures the boyish vulnerability of Kostya” Gerald Berkowitz, Theatre Guide London

“Rob Heaps’ intense Constantin. The oedipal sexual tension that builds as they try to salvage their long-forgotten affection is palpable.” Kevin E.G. Perry, musicOMH

“Played with ardent sincerity by Rob Heaps” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“A nicely tortured performance from Rob Heaps” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“Arkadina, the self-obsessed leading lady. In Carolyn Backhouse’s hands, she is a fading Southern belle, brittle, calculatingly bitchy, but also palpably terrified by her advancing age.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“Carolyn Backhouse has the courage to play Arkadina in all her vanity, cruelty and self-deception without trying to soften her or charm the audience.” Gerald Berkowitz, Theatre Guide London

“The compellingly destructive Carolyn Backhouse” Fiona Mountford, London Evening Standard

“Samara MacLaren… shows great promise as her character rides through stage fright to hope, passion to despair.” Philip Fisher, The British Theatre Guide

“Standouts in the ensemble were Andrea Hall’s Masha, deeply unhappy and never without a glass in her hand, she communicated her pain as much with her eyes as with her words” Ian Foster, ThePublicReviews.com

“Carolyn Backhouse as Arkadina, Stephen Billington’s Trigorin, Rob Heap’s Constantine, Lachele Cari’s Polina, Richard Franklin’s Sorin capture the essence of the characters” Blanche Marvin

“The ripely enjoyable performances of Stephen Billington and Carolyn Backhouse threaten to burst the narrow seams of the Finborough.” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“Andrea Hall and Daniel Norford make an attractively mismatched couple as Masha and Medvedenko” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“Phil Willmott’s astute production” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

“The production is elegantly staged, with Kim Alwyn and Aimee Sajjan-Servaes’s simple set inverted between acts so that the inside of the house becomes the garden and vice versa, and offers a rare chance to see a fascinating if flawed play.” Natasha Tripney, The Stage

“Willmott achieves wonders within the tiny space, abetted by the unfussy split-level design of Kim Alwyn and Aimee Sajjan-Servaes, and the nine actors shine under his direction” Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com

“You might want to brush up on the original version – it makes for an interesting game of compare and contrast – but it is by no means essential and you’ll probably be enjoying this production too much to bother. Williams tightens what is already a compelling plot, and director Phil Willmott gives the action a lively pace.” Edward Lukes, The London Magazine