Chekhovian, a new film from Case and Porter (AKA Meg Case and Brad Porter) follows Adult Film, a young and prolific Brooklyn-based performing company, in their year-long journey to bring Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull to the stage. The audience learns early on that this new production of the 131-year-old comedy (?) is a passion project for Adult Film’s Artistic Director, actor/writer Ryan Czerwonko (who has the role of “Konstantin” in the play). Sure enough, there’s no shortage of “passion” in this zesty documentary: We watch the large cast of actors push their bodies, talents, and emotions to the limit– all for their love of their craft. The vigorous physical rituals which the performers engage in to warm up before each rehearsal is probably more exercise than most Americans get in a week. Emotions become heightened, the cast become very close very fast, there’s the occasional “freakout”, and the line between the actors and the characters they are playing are dangerously close to becoming blurred…
Along the way, the group faces more than a few challenges: One actor has dropped out. The PR man quits. A new cast member (Peter Rinaldi, “Shamrayev”) shares that he has “no stage experience”! Some of the actors frequently challenge Mr. Czerwonko on the trajectory of the show. One of them, Mia Vallet (“Nina”), approaches the production with a more “clinical” method. She (rightfully) questions the show’s, shall we say, “audience accessibility” from the very beginning of the movie, asking Czerwonko “Why do you write these weird things? It’s like there’s nothing happening in it and it’s just kind of… strange, really!”Czerwonko (equally rightfully) responds that he prefers a looser approach to the material: In other words, if the audience doesn’t “get” it, who cares? Their creative debate could be a movie in itself! Other actors, particularly Megan Metrikin (“Arkadina”) and Simon Forton (“Sorin”), “go with the flow” with an admirable level of grace that ostensibly seems to come from experience. Of course, everything manages to come together: The audience gets to watchThe Seagull slowly take form– from the first reading in May 2023, to the New York City stage (where actor Austin Pendleton, a huge supporter of off-Broadway theater, is in attendance), and then finally to lovely Hudson, New York for an outdoor performance which threatens to turn The Seagull into Three Days of Rain. As one of the actors points out, this is a documentary about a family of actors putting on a play about… a group of actors!
Since first being performed in Russia in 1896, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is highly regarded as a classic of live theater; being such, it is considered a great challenge for any actor to take on one of its roles. That said, I absolutely cannot tell you anything about the plot of The Seagull, even after watching several of its renegade incarnations through the years and even after watching this lively film. But as we will all learn, the plot of Chekhov’s comedy (?) was never the point of Chekhovian. As actor Chris Martin (“Dorn”) deliciously summarizes at the end of the movie, “This is the closest I’ve ever worked with people where all the nuts and bolts are there to give to that primeval way of storytelling. It’s just us, in our bodies, however we’re feeling, telling the story. Yet we never once talked about what this story is about!”
Chekhovian is a fun experience, and that is largely due to the charms of the cast– as well as the fact that said cast are having a lot of fun themselves. Of course, it’s not all a bowl of cherry orchards. There are moments of legitimately high anxiety that any actor can relate to (lame audiences, never being able to have the entire cast present at the same time for rehearsals, etc…). Ryan Czerwonko, as the head honcho of this adventure, comes across as a combination of an eternally youthful imp and a masochist to his own artistic visions. Even though he is in almost every scene of the movie, Czerwonko still remains a man of mystery at the end of Chekhovian’s running time. As mentioned before, the actors are seemingly guided by their love of their profession rather than any potential financial rewards. Chris Martin (who was an L.A.- based film and television actor for 25 years) speaks about this in the movie. If that sounds a lot like the philosophy of late actor/filmmaker John Cassavetes, it’s no accident; Cassavetes is mentioned by one cast member as an inspiration. It’s clear many of these players didn’t choose their life as an actor; It chose THEM. When one performer tells another, “I’ll never do this again!”, we all know that he’ll be back on stage again very soon….
The editing of Chekhovian is frenetic, using very, very quick cuts throughout the entire film. It’s a bit frenetic even for A.D.D-licious viewers like me who have never known a world without MTV. Sometimes, conversations are even overlapped. Some viewers may find the editing style to be challenging. Visually, the film is beautifully shot, taking full HD advantage of its indoor and outdoor locations alike.
Adult Film’s Chekhovian will have its World Premiere at the BOWERY FILM FESTIVAL on October 25 at 6:15PM. You can also catch the film at the YOFIFEST on November 7th. Another AF film project, Delusion, will be the opener for Chekhovian at the Bowery FilmFest. See more at Chekhovian – The Film — Case & Porter and www.AdultFilm.nyc.
Chekhovian stars Ryan Czerwonko as Ryan/Konstantin, Mia Vallet as Mia/Nina, Megan Metrikin as Megan/Arkadina, Peter Rinaldi as Peter/Shamrayev, Chris Martin as Chris/Dorn, Chris Ryan as Chris/Trigorin, Lauren Guglielmello as Lauren/Masha, Simon Fortin as Simon/Sorin. Ellie Mae Miller as Ellie Mae/Paulina, Rob Riordan as Rob/Medvedenko, and Ethan Navarro as Ethan/Medvedenko.
