For Chekhov's MKhAT not to have Chekhov's The Seagull in its repertoire seems almost indecent. But now the play – or, more precisely, its remake – has made its reappearance with a premiere that was originally scheduled for the theater's anniversary at the end of October. The production is almost guaranteed to have a certain amount of devoted followers, namely among the intelligentsia, which is always ready to embrace the mystery and romanticism of Chekhov's text and the old-fashioned charm of the production.

Yet there is a weird feeling that haunts you as you watch the play. It is nearly impossible not to think of all those people who loved, created, suffered and died while performing in a production that was last seen 21 years ago. In this context, those we see on the stage today appear as ghosts of times past, or perhaps simply as characters of a different play. Of course, the actors who play the roles of Nina, Treplev, Trigorin and Arkadina make a genuine effort to preserve carefully the visible pattern their predecessors designed for the characters, but their own personalities don't seem to accord with them. Irina Miroshnichenko, who plays the brilliant primadonna Arkadina, and Yevgeniya Dobrovolskaya, who plays the passionate and infatuated Masha, have the most advantageous positions in this situation because their roles were redesigned in the remake to accommodate their own powerful personalities. As a result, they are the most vibrant characters in the play.

Others suffer from the attempt to preserve the historic production. This is especially true for Mikhail Khomyakov (Trigorin), who does not have the degree of male sensuality that is so essential to his character, a famous fiction writer, and was so evident in Khomyakov's predecessor, Aleksandr Kalyagin.

As for the main pair, Treplev (Yevgeny Mironov) and Nina (Maria Salakova), the two appear uncomfortable on an oversized stage and neither seems to have enough energy to exert influence upon the audience. Mironov gets it right as he shows his tender feelings for Nina as well as the suffering of a frustrated creator, but at times he appears unsure of himself as an actor. In this Seagull, Treplev comes across as especially pitiful, while the atmosphere of the play is surprisingly aloof. The great love for which the play is known is nowhere to be found. The play has everything in small doses: tenderness, fatigue, life and death. And a lingering taste of times past that, perhaps, did correspond to the mood of Chekhov's play.