In the backstage of a theatre, an ageing actress named Chayka struggles to remember why she is there. A young woman arrives to remind her: tonight she must play the part of Arkadina in Chekhov’s The Seagull.

 

 

 

It will be her final role. As her memory fades, not knowing quite who she is nor the part she is meant to be playing, she is determined at least to give this last performance. In her struggle and descent, reality and fiction intersect. She tries to keep to the plot, but the conflict with her son Konstantin, and the repeated abandonments of her lover Trigorin, soon plunge her back into her past.

 

 

There, she reconnects with the young actress she once was when she played another role – that of Nina. Her favourite part, Nina is the young actress who finds a way, somehow, to keep going. Through her, another Chayka emerges: the fighter who gets back to her feet to carve out a new form of theatre, another space for acting and life.

Like the characters in The Seagull, Chayka navigates between past and future, disappointment and hope – and keeps going in spite of everything.

 

Told in a dreamlike style, this duo performance for one actress and one puppet is the first piece from the Belgo-Chilean company Belova ~ Iacobelli.

 

 

Award for Best Performance and Best Actress by Círculo de Críticos de Arte de Chile (Chile) in 2018.
Audience Award for Best Stage Direction by Premios Clap (Chile) in 2018.
Maeterlinck Prize of the Critics (Belgium) category « Best Solo Show » in 2020.
Nominated for the Maeterlinck Prize of the Critics (Belgium) category « Best Actress » in 2020.
Grand Prize at the XXIX International Festival of Bieslko Biala in 2022 (Poland).

 

 

Cast & credits
Direction Natacha Belova et Tita Iacobelli
Outside eye Nicole Mossoux
Set design Natacha Belova
Performed by Tita lacobelli
Assistant director Edurne Rankin
Dramaturgical assistant Rodrigo Gijón
Set design assistant Gabriela González
Lighting design Gabriela González, Christian Halkin
Set construction Guy Carbonnelle, Aurélie Borremans
Sound design Gonzalo Aylwin, Simón González
Music Simón González based on Rafael Hernández’s song La Pobre Gaviota
Lighting and effects engineer Franco Peñaloza
Production Javier Chávez , IFO Asbl
Teaser Pedro Lorca, Simon Breeveld
Photography Michael Gálvez
Graphic design Augusto Gómez