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Hi Bluejay -- that's just it, I don't think anybody who attended the play would say Natalie had a flat delivery in any of her lines or scenes (except for purposely when Nina was acting in the serious play by Konstantin). I don't think any of the reviewers said that either. The one review said her voice did not change from the first act to the last, but didn't say it was flat, said it was bubbly. She was all over the place with her voice. I will talk a great deal about Natalie's fine voice when I write my review.

Everybody knows that the Queen Amidala voice was meant to sound monotone. And I think the ABH director was talking about something different when he said that about her being cerebral and disciplined, that it was more difficult for her to play angry at her mother than sad.

I think it is hard to relate to some of those reviews if you haven't actually seen the play, because you wouldn't even know what the scene looked like, how it went. The Village Voice review is actually pretty positive, says she physically made the change from Act I to Act IV, even if her voice didn't. I think some of the reviewers missed a great performance by Natalie because they were looking for something else. Maybe it will be on film, with close ups of Natalie's face? Then all could see.

Cal

floothe -- I saw the show the 9, 10, 11, and got rained out on the 12th. We missed each other by a day or so, but I felt your glorious presence. On Sat there was a fellow playing a classical guitar, but it was not you. I guess the city blocks do not seem that long to me, but I walk and run a lot in life. And I meant to say twenty blocks (not twelve -- 103rd to 81st) which is about one mile, I figured.

Yes, JC, I've been reading your posts and especially all the pro reviews you have been so graciously providing on this and other boards -- so thank you. Also noticed you are helping me out on the uncensored board.

Keep up the good work, guys!

Cal

First -- Thanks for the kind words, floothe and JC. Yes, we need critics of critics -- that was funny about the depressing review causing the foundation of the house to sink, floothe. And JC, it was hot and humid on the first couple of days, during the heat wave, but the afternoon rains brought cooler temps later in the week. It wasn't too bad, especially with the shade and all the shops with cold drinks nearby. I camp out alot in adverse conditions for my job, so it was a pleasant day in the park in comparison to some of my experiences.


Report: Spotlight on Natalie/Nina

Since Natalie's performance was pretty much ignored in the published reviews (beyond a 1 to 2 sentence assessment), I thought I'd give a more detailed description of the highlights. I think Natalie did an excellent job in the play and should get credit for all of the terrific scenes she gave us. Her part had a lot of variety and the character developed over time, and I can't think of any other young actress who could do as well. I really enjoyed watching Natalie do her thing.

**** CONTAINS SPOILERS ****

The Seagull unfolds outdoors near a house on a lake, slowly and somberly amidst the themes of unrequited love and unhappiness with life. Tortured, lovesick, misunderstood writer Konstantin (Kostya) is putting on his new play for guests at his family's estate. Kostya and his sickly uncle Sorin are awaiting the going-on-late arrival of Nina (Natalie's character), an aspiring actress and neighbor who will star in the play.

We hear the sound of a horse galloping, my heart catches in my throat, and then Natalie makes her truly spectacular entrance. Nina rides in on a horse, jumps down, then runs and jumps excitedly into Kostya's arms, and they kiss. Natalie's intense presence immediately energizes the atmosphere and the audience perks up (the play started out very sedately). Nina is out of breath, panting, worried about being late. Natalie speaks in a strong, lively, melodious voice and you can't help but take notice. Did that voice come out of that petite, gorgeous girl?? The entire mood of the scene changes simply on the power of Natalie's commanding voice. Nina tells the men, excited and laughing, about urging on her horse with, "Come on! Come on! Come on!" I'll always remember her saying those words. Natalie's energy and zeal really seemed to have a positive effect on the other actors -- they were beaming.

Nina changes out of her riding clothes, then into undergarments, and then into a loose smock for the play. Nina tells Kostya that his play is not very interesting because it doesn't have any real people and is only lines with no action. After Streep (and Kline) makes her super entrance (to audible cries, gasps, and applause on opening night -- what presence!!) we are all treated to Nina performing in the play within a play. The play is not very interesting -- it is only recited lines. It seems bound to be a failure.

Natalie is hilarious in this scene and has the audience laughing out loud. The play is a symbolist play with a dark theme about the future and certain words are repeated for effect. Nina has the emotion and gestures of an animatron, and the lines are delivered in an earnest and intense monotone with no emotion and an off beat cadence. Her face is all seriousiness as she repeats the words, "Terrible...it is terrible....terrible" and "cold... cold ....cold" and "horror....horror....horror..." to mucho laughter from the audience. It's a funny scene and Natalie does it perfectly.

The scene with the dead seagull is more serious and it marks the end of Nina and Kostya and the beginning of Nina and Trigorin. Kostya shoots a Seagull, drops it at Nina's feet, and says he shot it just like he is going to shoot himself. Nina is confused, bends down to the seagull, and remarks about how difficult their relationship has become due to his moodiness. Kostya lets Nina know that he knows she is no longer his, that she has fallen for Trigorin. Greg, these lines can't be repeated enough: "The sun's rays have not yet kissed you but you're already smiling - your glance melted in their warmth. Well, let me not stand between you and the sun."

Yes, euripides trousers, if you are seated in Sec D and above, you get a clear and lengthy view down Natalie's dress when she bends down to lift the dead bird. She is wearing a corset or bustier that lifts and supports, not-too flouncy of undergarments, a white dress with lace, and little high-heeled boots. Natalie is petite, with a narrow body and looks to be about 5'2" or so. And with that corset she looks to have just a 14 inch waist! She seemed not to be wearing a bustle yet she filled out the dress nicely in the back. Her hair was softly back in a long braid.

After Kostya leaves and Trigorin arrives, Nina sets out to snare Trigorin. Trigorin and Arkadina are planning to leave back to Moscow, and it may be the last time he ever sees Nina. Natalie is very good here, at walking the line between eager, impressionable, and inexperienced girl and conniving seductress who is aware of the effect that her untouched sexuality has on men, but has never experienced that effect. Natalie puts a lot of frisky physical action into her part in the first three Acts, frolicking about, laughing and spinning, and it really works here. Nina looks on with adoration as Trigorin tells all about what it is like to be a famous writer and creative genius. Nina gets all worked up over the prospect of fame and goes skipping and romping across the room with the words, "I would demand fame -- real resounding fame! Oh! my heads whirling..." And Nina goes dizzily whirling around, and careens into Trigorin's chest. Ooooppps!! They nearly embrace, but she backs away, teasing, just as we hear Arkadina's voice calling to Trigorin.

The tension is broken and Trigorin tells Nina he does not want to leave her. He sees the dead seagull and Nina explains that Kostya shot it. He makes some notes, Nina asks about the notes and Trigorn tells her the idea for story -- her story. "A young girl, like you, brought up on the shores of a lake. She loves the lake like a seagull and is happy and free just like a seagull. Then a man happens to come along, sees her, and having nothing much to do, destroys her, like this seagull." Then Arkadina shows up and tells Tirgorin they are not leaving afterall. Nina and Trigorin stand close to each other, breathing and staring, ever so slightly being pulled towards each other. Trigorn slowly reaches out and puts his hat on her head, then exits the room. Nina turns around once and then falls back into the hammock and says "It's.... a..... dream!" Curtain.

This building sexual tension eventually leads to the zinger of a kiss with Natalie and Kevin Kline. But to set it up, the action is a week later. Kostya had tried to kill himself and failed, but was recovering so that Arkadina and Trigorin were returning to Moscow. Nina gives Trigorin a gift to remember her by, a medallion with a passage from one of Trigorin's own books inscribed on the back: "If you ever have need of my life, come take it." Hmm Hmmm Hhmmm. This girl Nina is really getting under his skin. He has got to have her. Once again, Arkadina breaks up the two. Nina runs from the room, entreating Trigorin to just give her "two minutes" before he leaves.

Arkadina realizes Trigorin has fallen for the young wannabe actress. She could see it coming and she wants to keep her man. Here Streep has a great scene, lot's of passion and drama. Trigorin has the insensitivity to ask Arkadina to let him stay a bit longer at the lake so he can pursue Nina -- he is in love with her and needs her. Arkadina uses her sexaulity to entice Trigorin into leaving with her. They end up rolling around on the ground, kissing, lot's of emotion from both actors. Then she straddles him and says, "Alright. You can stay." So she wins and he decides to go back with her, that they will be together. To me this scene was not all that convincing, especially the first night. The acting was good, but there wasn't a real chemistry going on and it seemed forced.

But Portman and Kline did have some charged chemistry. Just before leaving, Trigorin goes to meet Nina for two minutes. She tells him that they will soon be together because she is going to Moscow too. She is giving up everything and has decided for a life on the stage. Trigorin gives her an address for where to stay in Moscow. He walks towards her, bends to look into her face, puts a hand on her chin and says, "You're so beautiful. It makes me so happy knowing we'll soon be seeing each other....that I can look into those wonderful eyes - that inexpressibly sweet smile, this lovely face - with its gaze of pure innocence like an angels -- my darling...."

The first night the kiss was short but intense and exciting because you could feel it coming. The second night he picked her up by the waist and they kissed as he carried her backward. She had her hands pulled back, like a girl who is in over her head, doesn't really know what to do. The kiss was much longer and more invloved on the third night. It started out slow, with him bending down to kiss her with his hands holding her face. Then he picked her up by the waist and slowly carried her backward. She first has her hands back, then she puts one hand around the back of his head, quickly followed by the other hand. They were really going at it with lot's of heavy lip, face, and mouth movement. They were like this for ten seconds or so. I found the kiss, no matter what night, to be extraordinarily erotic, just as Greg said. Yowza.

After they kiss, he runs off and Nina stands there alone, breathing hard. Then she begins whirling around in a circle with her arms held out, smiling and laughing. She stops and does a fancy bow, with an expression like, "Ta Da!! I got him."
Curtain.

ACT IV

Two years time has passed. The last act starts out very bleak and somber and slow as molasses. The characters are dressed in black, the weather is cold and blustery, and everybody is unhappy and miserable. Sorin is sick, possibly dying. Kostya has gotten some writing published but still he hates life, feels he is having to compromise his art, knows Trigorin is a better writer. Hoffman is playing Kostya very sedate and robotic here and it really sets a slow, depressing pace to the last act. Kostya tells us the story of Nina -- that her life is a shambles, Trigorin left her, she had a baby that died, her family disowned her, she lives in poverty and goes hungry, that her acting career was not that successful.

Later that same night Nina comes to see Kostya in secret. Natalie has made a remarkable physical transformation from the giddy, frisky young girl to a woman wizened up the hard way. Her carriage is completely different, she moves like she has a terrible aching, a soul pain -- unsteady, cautious, shaking, and all the while elegant and gracefully oozing from place to place. When she speaks her voice is lower, even more elegant sounding, like an old Hollywood actress. It was quite an effect, quite a transformation. She seemed to have aged twenty years.

The scene is very dramatic and emotional, but if you are seated on the right side of the theater Natalie's back is turned most of the time. You can not see any of her great facial expressions while she delivers heartbreaking lines. On the second night Greg (my hero) got us some excellent seats at left center and with binocculars I was able to study Natalie's face during the whole scene. Natalie is crying real tears off and on, and projects a sense of great pain and suffering underneath a serene being. Sometimes she had a smile that was twisted into agony, in other parts she had a look of complete, blank confusion and delirium, shock at the realization that Trigorin would do that to her. But her tone slipped into nostalgia, too, and her smile became real when she asked Kostya to remember the good old, carefree days when they were young and in love.

Natalie plays Nina as somebody who has been through the breakdown already and is slowly rebuilding her life. Her mind still wanders and she has to constantly convince herself that she is not the seagull. "I am the seagull. No wait. That's not what I meant." She struggles to remember that she survived to re-write the seagull story. Nina has spent two weeks at the lake, getting stronger, and finally she is able to cry, she sounds happy, relieved. "It makes me feel better to cry. I haven't cried for ages. I began to cry for the first time in two years - it was such a relief to cry, like a weight being lifted from my heart."

Nina is not staying long; it seems she has just come to deliver a message to Kostya. When he begins to tell her how much he loved her, how much he still loves her, how horrible his life has been without her, and how he wants her to stay with him, Nina quickly puts on her coat to leave. She collapses suddenly, onto her hands and knees. In a voice of utter anguish Nina cries, "What do you mean, you kissed the ground I walked on? I don't deserve to live! ....... I'm so tired. If only I could rest." It's a very sudden, dramatic, and heartbreaking moment, and Natalie pulls it off. Very poignant.

Then Nina begins a confused rambling about her life, how she was a stupid girl, how Trigorin was cruel to her, about the seagull as an idea for a short story but how it is the wrong story, not her story. Nina passes on what she has learned about survival to Kostya, perhaps in hopes that he will learn to survive, too. "What I've realized Kostya, whether we're writers or actors, what really counts is not dreaming of fame or glory... but stamina: knowing how to keep going despite everything, and having faith in yourself. I've got faith in myself now and that's helped the pain, and when I think to myself, 'You're on the stage!' then I'm not afraind of anything life can do to me."

Kostya realizes she has found herself, that she will go on while he continues his miserable existence. Nina goes to leave but collapses again; this time Kostya catches her before she falls to the ground. "I'm so tired and hungry I can hardly stand." Nina refuses food but finally acknowledges that she knows Trigorin is with Arkadina in the other room. She still loves him, and begins to cry again. Her face is twisted in sadness and resignation. "I love him..... I love him more than ever. I love him passionately......... I love him to despair." She reminisces about the good old, carefree days, when they were young and delicate and recites some lines from Kostya play before she finally leaves.

The scene is heartbreaking and sets the tone for the bleak ending, when Kostya takes his life. On the first night, the audience broke into applause for Natalie at the end of her scene. On each night I heard people crying, I had tears in my eyes. I found the scene disturbing due to the physical change in Nina, the sense of pain that Natalie projected. She switches back and forth from delirium and frailty to being focused and strong. Nina seems old and hardened, yet determined and wiser, ready to face the world again. Natalie's facial expressions are a big factor in communicating her emotions, and if you're not watching them, much of the effect is lost. I got the sense that Nina wanted to give Kostya a message for life, but it was too painful to be around him and the despair of his mother and her lover, Trigorin. She ignored that Kostya still loved her so that she could escape from the endless melancholy of that house by the lake.

I felt Natalie intended to play the final scene without a big breakdown or excessive histronics, it was not called for. I think that she would have done it if she felt it was needed. Nina had the breakdown earlier, but since being at the lake she was getting stronger and more determined to go on. Nina was convinced she was not the seagull, that she was not destroyed, that endurance and having faith, was the most important thing to get through life. She had a new life as an actress that gave her joy and she would persevere. She passed her knowledge on to Kostya, but had to leave him in order to continue her life.

Natalie had many wonderful moments throughout the play, and showed a wide range of emotions. She had the audience laughing and crying, and she was absolutely beautiful to gaze at. She poured her heart out and was very free in her acting, giving an intensity and vibrance that the older, more experienced actors did not have. Watching Natalie live and hearing that majestic voice was a wonder to behold.

Cal