From The Shakespearean Archetype To The Chekhovian Symbol: Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull As A Space For Directorial Experimentati

Abstract

This article argues that in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” the Hamlet-derived tragic archetype shifts into an inward, modernist mode: under the surrounding world’s indifference and disconnection, conflict migrates from public action to private fracture. The tragic charge is not diminished but concealed within everyday life, culminating in Treplev’s nearly silent self-destruction. Directorial readings – such as Nikita Betekhtin’s production at the “Eugène Ionesco” National Theatre in Chișinău – show how Chekhov’s classical structure, symbolic subtext, and hidden tragedy make the play a space for experiment: it absorbs postdramatic languages, visual performance, and modern technologies while retaining its “Hamletian” collisions. Thus, the passage from the Shakespearean archetype to the Chekhovian symbol marks both a change of epoch and a continuous line in the tragic principle – from overt romantic conflict to the internal rupture of the modern and postmodern individualstill resonant today in themes of loneliness, alienation, resistance to conservative norms, and the search for new artistic forms.