The Seagull,drama in four acts byAnton Chekhov, performed in 1896 and published inRussian the following year asChayka. A revised edition was published in 1904. The play deals with lost opportunities and the clash between generations.

The main characters, all artists, are guests at a country estate. They are Mme Arkadina, a middle-aged actress; her lover, Trigorin, a successful writer; her son Konstantin, a writer; and Nina, a youngaspiring actress whom Konstantin loves. Mme Arkadina, jealous of Nina’s youth and promising career, acts cruelly and hatefully toward Konstantin, belittling his new play and withholding the approval he desperately seeks from her. Nina, impressed by Trigorin’s fame, ignores Konstantin, who kills a seagull and shows it to her, perhaps symbolically referring to his broken dreams. All four go their separate ways, but two years later they are reunited at the same estate. When Nina again rejects Konstantin, he destroys his writings and shoots himself while his mother, unaware, plays cards in another room.

Acclaimed actressUta Hagen, winner of threeTony Awards, made her Broadway debut as Nina in 1938, a production that also starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.