Seagull Dreams is my deconstructed, subjective new version of Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, created in February 2023 for Palermo’s Teatro Biondo. Seagull Dreams was cast with young actors from the Academy who had worked on House of Us the year before, as well as the great Italian actress Pamela Villoresi and my iconic actor and muse, Geoffrey Carey. Here we returned to a traditional proscenium theatre production, but the themes remain in symbiosis with House of Us- Part 1: The Mother.

Having explored various texts from Chekhov plays with the young actors in Palermo and Venice, I was inspired to write my own contemporary adaptation of Chekhov’s masterpiece. With Seagull Dreams, I had the opportunity to develop the themes that obsess me: Life and Theatre, life in the theatre, theatre in life. The Seagull holds up a lovingly cruel mirror to our profession, showing the clash between generations, with Kostia’s angry cry of “we need new forms!” forever resounding. Above all, it lays bare the artists’ pathological need for success and recognition, and the terror of failure.

The Seagull Dreams rehearsals took us on a thrilling journey between the narrative framework of Chekhov’s play and our contemporary reinventions. Interspersing the story with music and videos, we found ourselves in a dreamlike playing space, inhabited by personal memories. Above all, I was moved by the relevance and timelessness of the play for young audiences, seeing how deeply it resonates with the pain of youth, today, more than ever..