The Notebook of Trigorin
by Tennessee Williams
by Tennessee Williams
The Notebook of Trigorin is Tennessee Williams’ adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, exploring the personal struggles and emotional turmoil of a fading actress, her family, and a young writer against the backdrop of American theatre.
About The Play
About The Play
★★★★ Four Stars WhatsOnStage
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.