Interview with Walter Dallas: Changing the World with Chekhovian Passion and Love

Last year, Walter Dallas, the Senior Artist-in-Residence for the UMD School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, directed his first play at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Now he prepares for his next production from February 25 to March 5, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.

The first of Chekhov’s four major plays, The Seagull was first staged in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1896.

Recently, we talked with Dallas about why he chose this play and how he will approach it as a director.

Why was The Seagull selected for this season?
Walter Dallas: I love this play, with its many layers of passionate, driving concerns, many that seem to reflect those of our students: idealism, love, art, theatre, writing, acting, love, transcendence, identity, longing and unrequited love.

The Seagull is for all time. The play is about then and resonates now. Bringing the play through the fire of creation to blazing life on the stage calls for the delicacy and the audacity of ensemble acting.

Many of the cast members are students of mine; staging The Seagull will put the mettle of our notions of ensemble work to the ultimate test — in front of an audience.

I love this play, with its many layers of passionate, driving concerns…

The Seagull has been interpreted as a satire, a comedy and a tragedy with comic elements. How has it been able to work in different formats? What approach will you be taking?
WD: My approach will be “both/and” rather than “either/or.” It is all of the above and more. I believe the play is satire, tragedy, comedy — it is life, with all of its clear cuttings and ambiguities, its precision and its morphisms.

Life, with all its dazzling shades of grey and muted and brilliant hues, will be on display, all connected by passion, and, in this production, even elements of black magic.

This play marks a departure from dramatic action for Chekhov — talk a little bit about the plot and premise from your perspective. What can audiences expect?
WD: People possessed by high stakes and molten passion.

For example, I am very interested in Masha’s private self: her drive, her stifled passion. How far would she go, what would she not do to get the man she desires? What if she had dark, mysterious powers? What if she used roots and cast spells to control the world and to draw people to her? And would she use these dark powers against those who stood in her way?

Anything is possible in this world I want to create, even dramatic action.

I believe the play is satire, tragedy, comedy — it is life, with all of its clear cuttings and ambiguities, its precision and its morphisms.

What’s it been like working with this cast?
WD: We’ve started dialogues about the characters and their inner lives.

We’ve listened to a modern version of Ravel’s Pavane for Dead Princess, which I’ve selected as the theme song for the play. We’ve also listened to underground and heavily reverbed bars from ReverbNation to a post-contemporary homage to Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You” that underscores what will be Masha’s relationship with Treplev, and the influences that Rasputin and the outlawed Khlysty religious sect might have on the way this Masha sees the world.

What makes The Seagull relevant to today’s audiences?
WD: The challenging aches of identity, fulfillment, idealism and needing to be loved are not just issues of young people, but are the sirens that beckon us all.

The play speaks to us all and allows utter stillness, moments of reflection, that many misunderstand as a lack of dramatic action.

Anything is possible in this world I want to create, even dramatic action.

In Chekhov, in a twinkling of an eye, in the remembering and humming of the melody of a childhood song, lives can change and the noblest of estates can crumble. No longer than it takes “the bird of silence” to fly overhead, can Chekhovian passion and love destroy (or positively enhance) the world forever.

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