The Seagull at the Barbican review: Cate Blanchett-led production is exhilarating and vital

If the name Anton Chekhov gives you anxiety, like saying it out loud might expose you as under-read and uncultured, you’re not alone. At the Barbican’s radical reinterpretation of Chekhov’s The Seagull last night, this dullard kept mistaking mentions of “Tolstoy” for Toy Story.

Thankfully, this hilariously self-aware production from director Thomas Ostermeier helped me embrace creeping concerns of philistinism and laugh at myself. Not just because the modern-day setting, vaping and all, made the mistake somewhat plausible (so too the chaotic assembly of high, middle and lowbrow characters, forced by economic realities to coexist at a lake house) but because, by this point, theatreland had already been lampooned as “elitist” (often), “overpriced” (definitely in London) and “irrelevant” (never) by central character Konstantin: a surly aspiring playwright sinking in a bog of contradictions, throwing epic tantrums every time his brilliantly arrogant mother Irina, a feted actress in fabulous sunglasses played by Cate Blanchett, rolls into town. As you can imagine, the gravitational pull of Cate’s star power is magnified in this role.

Kodi Smit-McPhee, so sweet and understated in The Power of the Dog, is a fascinating knot of gremlin angst here. And no wonder – while Irina was off conquering the world, he was left behind in “the sticks”, discarded as casually as the surplus flowers and gifts she receives from fans. Or is his station in life – and that bed-rotting, video game addict energy we’ve all encountered – you know… his choice?

His starry, self-possessed mum, on the other hand, is a riot. Cate serves up (brace yourself for lowbrow references) a toxic yet irresistible blend of Amanda from Motherland’s arrogance and Eddie’s absurdity in Absolutely Fabulous, with a perfume spritz of Mommie Dearest for good measure. (“You’re a nobody!”) Nowhere is this clearer than when Konstantin sheepishly presents his first play. It’s a dud, and like a toddler buckling under the weight of self-awareness after a living room performance, he scarpers.

Konstantin’s emotional pain is mirrored and complicated by his unrequited love for Nina, an aspiring actress pathetically preoccupied with fame, nevertheless played with haunting despair and depth by Emma Corrin. Sans goldfish bowl dress, Emma is a picture of hunched, small-town drudgery. So much is communicated by the characters’ clothes: a working-class character’s scruffy sportswear; a writer’s calculatedly dishevelled shirt; the uniform of youth: baggy jeans and vintage cardigans; Irina’s devil-may-care approach to Birkenstocks, glitter jeans and even pigtails. (Cate, tap-dancing and dishing out high camp lines like “poor little crumpet!”, has a blast.)

Tom Burke brings trademark bearishness as Irina’s tortured intellectual lover Alexander who, much to Irina and Konstantin’s panic, develops eyes for potential new muse Nina. Adding further discord to the group dynamic is Sex Education‘s ever-charming Tanya Reynolds as the heavily depressed, comically blank estate manager’s daughter Masha, who’s in unrequited love with Konstantin. Meanwhile, quad-biking everyman Simon is in unrequited love with her. (Zachary Hart plays the latter with epic warmth, thrillingly breaking character for moments of improv comedy and guitar.)

If the play has one problem, it’s that there are too many characters to care about. And while stark, minimalist staging keeps the focus on actors, and there’s less of Cate than one might have hoped for – though entirely correct, given the strength of the ensemble and the play’s themes – I would still have loved more for the gorgeous Priyanga Burford. Then again, at three hours with interval, and with grief, rejection, dissatisfaction and failure coalescing to kill comedy during a literal thunderstorm in the second half, no part of me willed this to be longer.

It’s certainly revealing to hear Konstantin bemoan the irrelevance of theatre, while incrementally checking out of life, when this show – from the guilty sensory pleasure of an indoor cigarette, to the shine of tears on Irina’s cheeks as she arrives, too late, at a realisation about love that we, the audience, can still benefit from – is so exhilarating, it makes you glad to be alive.