San Diegans can rejoice at the arrival of Aaron Posner’s supremely theatrical, deliciously meta, hilariously scabrous take on Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. As for Angelinos who missed Stupid Fucking Bird at The Theatre @ Boston Court a couple years back, or who simply want the chance to re-experience it with exhilaratingly fresh direction and a daringly diverse cast, Cygnet Theatre is just a road trip away.

Meet stage-and-screen star Emma Arkadina (Karole Foreman), whose famed-writer lover Doyle Trigorin (Francis Gercke) is pined over by aspiring actress Nina Zachery (Rachel Esther Tate), the object of affection of Emma’s manic-depressive wannabe scribe son Conrad Arkadina (Ro Boddie), himself adored from afar by dour goth chick Mash Amberson (Jacque Wilke), who’s got her own sweet but hotness-challenged suitor Dev Dylan (Brian Rickel). Emma’s aging brother Dr. Eugene Sorn (Walter Murray), meanwhile, remains somehow, miraculously unattached.

Sound familiar?

What sets Posner’s take on Chekhov apart from the original is not just its updated time frame and more contemporary vernacular (e.g. expect to hear the titular adjective used as just about every part of speech throughout).

Stupid Fucking Bird’s most deliciously 21st-century twist may well be its protagonists’ awareness that they are characters in a play, as when Con informs us, “I’m right here and you’re right there, and since you can see and hear me let’s just assume I can see and hear you….” (Talk about meta!)

Those with a familiarity with the Chekhov original will laugh the loudest at some of playwright Posner’s cleverer lines. (A petulant Con suddenly blurts out near the start, “I’m going to shoot myself in the head.”)

On a related note, just as Chekhov wrote it a century-and-a-half ago, one of Stupid Fucking Bird’s most dramatic moments happens à la Chekhov, i.e. away from our eyes—and with a bang.

And it wouldn’t be a Seagull takeoff without the original’s one-person play-within-a-play. (This time round Con insists on calling it a “site-specific performance event,” though that doesn’t make it any less pretentious, leading lady Nina intoning in all seriousness, “Here we are. Here we are. Here we are.”)

Still, you don’t have to know The Seagull to relish Stupid Fucking Bird. Possessing a love for smart plays and playwriting will suffice, and with Rob Lutfy waving his inspired directorial baton, audiences are in for one rollicking roller-coaster ride, from Con’s preshow fourth-wall-breaking to a full-cast circle dance that pays homage to a Chekhov quite literally gazing down from above to the two trash bags of swept-up autumn leaves that Con dumps on either side of the stage to set the season. (And the play has only just begun.)

By making Emma, Con, and Sorn an African-American family, director Lutfy adds (excuse the pun) new colors to Posner’s already colorful cast, with the fabulous Foreman doing the divine Diahann Carroll proud, Murray bringing his own understated excellence to her physician brother, and above all Boddie delivering a manic, magnetic star turn as Con. (Imagine a young Eddie Murphy as Hamlet and you’ll get the picture.)

San Diego theatergoers can savor local treasure Wilke’s oxymoronically blonde take on gloomy goth girl Mash, along with Gercke’s suave and sexy Doyle, Tate’s incandescent Nina, and Rickel’s endearingly schlumpy Dev, all of them absolutely splendid.

Michael Mizerany adds some exciting choreographic touches, most particularly a who-loves-whom chair dance that earns deserved cheers. (Director Lutfy adds his own “chair-eography” throughout as well.)

A crackerjack production design team—set designer Andrew Hull, lighting designer R. Craig Wolf, costume designer Veronica Murphy, wig and makeup designer Peter Herman, sound designer David Scott, and props designer Syd Stevens—give Cygnet’s Stupid Fucking Bird a thrillingly inventive look and sound that complements Posner’s play’s meta-theatricality to perfection.

Meg DeBoard is assistant director. Dean Remington is stage manager and Hannah May assistant stage manager. Taylor Wycoff is dramaturg. Hannah Logan understudies.

Even with an extra hour of Memorial Day Weekend traffic added to yesterday’s drive down south, it’s a trek I’d make again in a heartbeat. SoCal theater doesn’t get any more electrifying than Cygnet Theatre’s Stupid Fucking Bird.

Cygnet Theatre, 4040 Twiggs St., San Diego.
www.cygnettheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
May 28, 2016
Photos: Daren Scott

Tags: Aaron Posner, Anton Chekhov, Cygnet Theatre, San Diego County Theater Review, The Seagull