La Mouette (2012) (Television movie)

English Title

The Seagull.

Director

Arthur Nauzyciel

Playwright

Anton Chekov

Year

2012

Form

Television movie. A live telecast of the play from the Festival D’Avignoon was broadcast on television station France 2 on July 24, 2012, during the Festival d'Avignon.

Synopsis

The scene takes place at the edge of a lake. A small community is gathered in the countryside and will attend the performance of the play by a young author, Konstantin Gavrilovitch Tréplev, who dreams of a new theater. There is her mother, Arkadina, a famous actress, accompanied by her lover, Trigorine, a renowned writer. We are waiting for the arrival of Nina - with whom Tréplev is madly in love - the young performer of this strange play which speaks of a world after life, of a dry and arid land "where all living beings have dissipated in ash". This vision of the young Treplev at the beginning of Chekhov's play, seems to come from the beyond, from a world of the dead which would address that of the living: "We must paint life not as it is , nor as it should be, but as it represents itself in dreams”.

Arthur Nauzyciel

The seagull gives itself like a melancholy ball, where memories and disillusions mingle with silent suffering, a round of impossible loves. It is life itself that is played out, with the hope that love, art and the ideal will help man to rise, "to fly from the earth, as far as possible, towards the height” and simply to live.

Where staged

Cour d'honneur Festival D'Avignon (2012) & Touring 2012/2013/2014

Broadcast live on TV station France 2 on July 24, 2012

Duration

4h, including intermission

Festivals

Festival d'Avignon, 2012

Adèle’s role

Masha, the daughter

Rewatch notes

I watched the television recording of the play (extracts below). It did not have English subtitles, so I just went along with the vibe and couldn't follow the story in detail. It is quite declamatory and the venue is truly massive! Any recording of a play is tricky, because the actors are performing for the audience in the theatre (or vast outdoor venue in this case), not for the camera. By necessity, acting in the theatre is different to acting for cinema, with close ups and the like. Filming a theatre production, thus, has inherent problems, but it lets so many more people experience the magic of theatre, so we just accept the challenges of filming a theatrical performance.

Adèle projects herself all the way back to the cheap seats, and so it is pretty full-on. She is gorgeous in the role of Macha and does a brilliant job in her first role in professional theatre. It is a massive production and a significant role for a young actress—and she nails it!

Snippets from the production

https://youtu.be/LlGiusM86g4 (7 mins 27s)

Interview with the director & clips

https://youtu.be/17fsSrme_BY (10min 2s)

Reviews

I couldn’t find reviews that referred to Adèle’s performance explicitly. Reviews in the French media were ‘mixed’ and those in UK press were (I am sad to say) scathing.

Notes

The performance of July 24 2012 was recorded and broadcast on France 2. This is the television movie.

This was Adèle's first venture into professional theatre—and she did it in a big way: a Chekov play at a major cultural festival! Adèle had done community theatre activities since she was about 5 years old, when she went to the local cultural centre. She says that it was a way for her parents to get some peace. Adèle's drive for challenges and extending her experience that has been seen in her cinema roles is also reflected in her theatre choices.

To give a little context: in 2012, when Adèle appeared in La Mouette at the Avignon Festival, she was having a massive year and start to her early career:

in 2011 three of her films had been screened at the Cannes Film Festival—L'Apollonide, Après le Sud, & En Ville
in 2012 she had been named as one of the César Revelations, those young artist in French cinema who had been identified as future stars
in 2012 she was a 'Shooting Star', as named by European Film Promotion.
in 2012 she was the face (the muse) of the 2012 Bordeaux Film Festival (FIFIB).

So, it was in the context of amazing success in cinema that the young Adèle chose to perform in the theatre at a major event. She could have stayed in conema, but she chose to perform in live theatre. I love the courage, both professional and personal that she continues to demonstrate.

This article discusses Adèle's theatre experience:

Adèle Haenel and Nicolas Maury: targeted conversation about Avignon