Stupid Fucking Bird

What if the characters in your favorite TV show or movie suddenly came alive behind the screen, and questioned the narratives of which they're a part, questioned their roles in those stories and even questioned you in the midst of their existential crises -- you, sitting there beyond the frame of the TV or computer screen? Perhaps that might seem strange, but where else can such a thing happen but on the stage?

Yes, "the play's the thing," as Hamlet once said, and the Pearl Theatre Company's presentation of "Stupid Fucking Bird" does just that -- presents a play of characters who question their stories, themselves and the audience in this meta, modern-day adaptation of Chekov's "The Seagull."

In this play, Chekov's young Constantine takes the form of Conrad Arkadina (Christopher Sears), an experimental theater artist who's interested in "new forms" of artistic expression. He simultaneously criticizes and desperately seeks the approval of his mother, Emma Arkadina (Bianca Amato), a famous actress, but Emma has no interest in her son's artistic ventures and rather occupies herself with her own acclaim and her lover, the famous writer Doyle Trigorin (Erik Lochtefeld). However, a mutual attraction quickly develops between Trigorin and Nina (Marianna McClellan), Conrad's girlfriend, who wishes to be a famous actress.

Rounding out the cast is Eugene Sorn (Dan Daily), a combination of Chekov's Sorin and Dorn, who's Emma's brother and Conrad's uncle; Dev (Joe Paulik), this play's Medvedenko, Conrad's whiny, simple best friend, who's in love with Mash (Joey Parsons), adapted from Chekov's Masha, an emo ukulele-playing cook with unrequited feelings for Conrad.

The stage, with its rolling black panels and spare, industrial look, simply looks like an unfinished stage, drawing attention (as this play always does) to the play as a product of the fictional world and to the show itself, as it's happening live, on the stage, before the audience. The sound, unfortunately, suffers due to the acoustics of the space, which isn't helped by the fact that the actors perform most of the show without mics.

Still, there are performances that stand out, such as that of Sears, who takes on the role with a notable mix of snark, mania, imbalance, and pure kinetic energy that has to be expected from this modern-day Constantine. Amato's Emma is charming and engaging, with a touch of coldness, but her moments of vulnerability don't always ring as true as they should.

Lochtefeld's Trigorin is aloof and soft-spoken, yet still charming and never wholly villainous, while McClellan's Nina is believably flighty (as a seagull, if you will), hopeful and vulnerable. Daily doesn't get much out of his character until the second half of the play, when he addresses Sorn's role as an archetypal character and the place his silence has in the play, but presents this simply, genuinely, without flourish. Paulik, playing Dev as the comedic relief, overworks the character at times and the laughs don't come too easily, while Parsons' Mash has a moment or two, but overall, also feels too close to the stock character she represents.

In a show where the characters switch between states of meta-awareness about themselves and their fates and the ways in which they function as part of a manipulated performance, how then do we take the scenes that follow, which re-engage with the plot in a way that seems to be earnest? It's a tough ask -- of actors and audiences alike -- to have such quick and jarring shifts take place, and the risk is a play that, rather than questioning what is genuine, appears to have nothing genuine to offer overall. And in these moments of character awareness, what are we to think of characters who tell us what to think of them, of their flaws and failures, their roles as metaphors and symbols?

The play, while it knowingly engages with reality in a way that's interesting and surprising (and, quite frankly, a bit odd, particularly in the extent to which this degree of meta-awareness is asserted), takes away the mysteries of character and plot from the audience. After all, the main vehicle of the show is its postmodern relationship to its predecessors: "The Seagull," of course, but also "Hamlet," which "The Seagull" itself references in its moments of self-awareness. But "Stupid Fucking Bird" takes Chekov's characters, themes and symbols for granted, having its characters examine themselves both inside and outside of this original frame of reference.

Of course, "Stupid Fucking Bird" does not propose to be "The Seagull"; in fact, the tagline of the play names it as a "'sort-of' adaptation" of Chekov's piece, and at one point Conrad flippantly refers to the picture of Chekov posted to a wall and finally reveals the name of his most recent play: "Stupid Fucking Bird." Yes, another level of meta humor.

By the end, when Conrad turns to the audience to question our expectations for his character and the play, as well as our shallow level of engagement with theater and our need for some type of emotional catharsis (the notion of which, by the way, he rejects), it's clear that are no real emotional or moral stakes in the characters or plot of this play; rather, all value is placed on the intellectual discourse, the discussions of art and the fictional (or staged) versus the real.

As unique and adventurous as this meta Russian nesting doll of a play can be, it is also so heavy-handed in its methods, so bold in its assumptions (one of which being that the audience is fully knowledgeable of the original play, so that the references land), and so incriminating even of its audience, that it ventures occasionally into the realm of pretension. And with the play's nearly two-and-a-half-hour run time, that's something that is definitely felt.

"Stupid Fucking Bird" can be rough at times, too indulgent in its intellectual play with its referential winks and meta elbow nudges, but it's still enjoyable, a surprising take on modern theater, on art, and, of course, Chekov's beloved "The Seagull."

"Stupid Fucking Bird" plays through May 8 at the Pearl Theatre, 555 W. 42nd St., New York. For information or tickets, call 212-563-9261 or visit www.pearltheatre.org.