Cate Blanchett shines in a panoply of stars

Barbican Theatre

Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier, and directed by Thomas Ostermeier, is modernised without losing its essential tragi-comedy but playing up its questioning of the place of art in society. There were many critics who loved this approach but some found it a little self-indulgent. Cate Blanchett pleased most of the critics with her top class acting but there were those who found it over the top. The performances by Tom Burke, Emma Corrin, Jason Watkins and other members of the cast were universally praised.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

Tim Bano for the Standard announced: ‘it’s got a performance from Cate Blanchett that may well be the best of the year’. He goes into much detail, the essence of which is ‘It’s an immensely skilled performance from Blanchett, to act acting like that, and to do it in so many different ways.’ He ended with this eulogy: ‘Why exactly HAVE we paid all this money to watch a three-hour self-pity party? Is there a point to watching a play about art and love when the world is so horrible? That’s what the production wrestles with, so uncomfortable in its own skin, so unhappy to be doing what it’s doing, but along the way turning itself into an exquisite piece of theatre that becomes the answer to its own questions.’

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre described it as ‘Magnificent theatre’. She said, ‘Blanchett is fabulously entertaining as this self-involved, limelight-hogging, needily territorial diva…the shattering moment comes when she fights against another, unwelcome role, that of the rejected woman begging her lover not to leave her for a younger model. Blanchett breaks out of the “scene”, her whole performance shifting to raw, vulnerable and softly naturalistic. It’s naked emotion, startling amid the studied artifice, and it is electrifying. But, magnetic though Blanchett is, this is a unified ensemble effort. Tom Burke is tremendous as a compulsively vampiric writer whose detachment, which initially seems amusingly eccentric, is revealed to be chillingly sociopathic.’

Neil Norman in the Express called it ‘A dazzling, powerfully entertaining night.’ He declared ‘Cate Blanchett is as distinguished on stage as she is on film. As Irina Arkadina, the over-the-hill, over-the-top actress of Chekhov’s play, she is both venomous and vulnerable’.

4 stars ★★★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar found that it ‘rather magically balances lightness, wit and melancholy’. She said ‘Blanchett may be the glitteriest of castings but this is a powerhouse ensemble that first matches and then outshines her in intensity.’ She liked the way ‘The play’s love triangles are beautifully accomplished and full of intensity, humour bringing a contrapuntal energy to the characters’ sadness.’ She also praised the ‘overt sense of performance throughout, which is fitting for a play that grapples with questions about the purpose of art and the value of theatre in a time of crisis.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish asserted ‘Blanchett’s performance is unmissable…she has the measure of a woman using lofty control to mask mid-life and maternal pain.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton was impressed by ‘how serious and sensitive it is in unpicking both the comic and tragic notes in Chekhov’s study of a group of unhappy, arty, self-obsessed people who can’t make any sense of their lives in a time of crisis – and have a miserable habit of falling in love with the wrong person’.

Alice Saville in The Independent commented that the ‘staging is languid and thoughtful, sucking you into the self-fixated inner worlds of these awful, fascinating people.’ Having said ‘The first few acts sing, powered by these characters’ ravening, punchily expressed hunger for fame, love and meaning’, she cautioned: ‘But when disillusionment sets in, the play loses momentum’.

3 stars ★★★

Not everyone was an enthusiast for this interpretation. Gary Naylor for BroadwayWorld said: ‘The greatest writer of subtext is buried under too much text, the great Russian peeking out occasionally from beneath the director’s suffocating concept’. He complained that ‘half comic and half tragic instead of fully comic and fully tragic at the same time.’ Although muted in his praise of Cate Blanchett’s ‘wildly over the top’ performance, he complimented other members of the cast: ‘As her lover…Alexander Trigorin, Tom Burke catches both the seductive charm of the pseudo-intellectual and his destructive narcissism’. For him, ‘Emma Corrin is superb’ and ‘The biggest laughs are reserved for Jason Watkins’ terrific turn as Peter Sorkin’.

Time Out’s Andrzej Luwokski called it ‘an enjoyable but somewhat indulgent three-hour show, in which the Seagull’s considerable ambiguities (is it a comedy? A tragedy? Both?) often feel pushed to their limit in all directions.’

The Stage‘s Sam Marlowe said it was ‘relentlessly self-aware and archly meta, constantly confronting us with the artificiality of the spectacle we’re witnessing and demanding that we question what we’re doing there. But even as it sends up theatrical conventions and trends – those modish microphones come in for some mockery, for a start – it can’t resist them. It’s clever, and excellent performances from a cast led by Cate Blanchett mean it’s always engaging. Yet there’s something faintly smug about it; the experience is akin to watching a purring cat assiduously lick itself all over.’ Miaow!

2 stars ★★

The Times‘ Clive Davis found it ‘a very long evening’. He explained, ‘it’s a little like seeing a classic rewritten with children’s crayons’.

Critics’ Average Rating 3.8★

Value rating  19 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Seagull is at the Barbican until 5 April 2025. Click here to buy direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen The Seagull at The Barbican, please add your review and rating below