Word: konstantin
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...greatest challenge for Yeltsin has been winning over a skeptical world, unwilling to believe that the Soviet Union and the Gorbachev era have really become part of history. "At first the West underestimated the radical nature of our reforms," says Konstantin Kagalovsky, a government counselor on international financial institutions. After Gaidar's team drafted a memorandum for the International Monetary Fund, initial doubts gave way to strong support for the Yeltsin government's tough fiscal policies. The latest compromise raises questions, once again, about what the West can do to bail out Russia. But it is Russians, feeling the bite...
While highly touted in the play's programs notes, this strategy is essentially pointless: the incestuous jealousy that Konstantin feels toward Trigorin would be apparent without it; Nina shows more character than Ophelia ever did; and the analogy completely falls apart when it comes to Trigorin and his relationship with Nina...
Rylance does play Konstantin with enough moodiness for several Hamlets but, unfortunate for an otherwise well-acted production, neither he nor Estabrook are able to rise above shallow interpretations of their pivotal roles...
Similarly, Rylance's Konstantin shows almost no progress between the first and second acts (Act IV in the original version). Two years later, Konstantin has become a famous author, Nina has abandoned him for Trigorin and then in turn been abandoned herself. Yet Rylance plays the part as morosely in the second act as in the first. Konstantin has not changed as much as Nina, but a more subtle portrayal would make the audience more sympathetic to the depressed young author...
Erin McMurtry as Masha steals the show almost every time she is on stage. Masha, the daughter of the estate manager, is almost as depressed as Konstantin. While lamenting ("I am in mourning for my life"), she is fundamentally more level-headed; McMurtry makes the character more real than many in The Seagull...