Literary criticism, theatre theory and the director’s task: Katie Mitchell’s production of Chekhov’s The Seagull

Abstract

This article looks at how Chekhov’s play The Seagull thematises the challenges of translating and directing theatre texts, focusing specifically on Katie Mitchell’s 2006 production of Martin Crimp’s version of the play. It suggests that literary criticism remains an important tool for theorising theatre texts and performance. By focusing on the frictions between analysis of the text as language and approaches that equally emphasise the visual, the embodied and the performative, we can develop interesting theoretical perspectives on the relationship between words as material to be read, and the broader functions of the words of theatre texts in performance. In this case in particular, the article works through some of the challenges and choices a director like Katie Mitchell faces when converting a passion for literature, via a play that reflects theoretically on the relationship between writing, acting and directing, into performance.