Of all of Anton Chekhov's great plays, The Seagull is not only the hardest to pull off -- with its delicate balance of comedy and tragedy -- but the hardest to mount in an intimate Off-Broadway house like Classic Stage Company's 13th Street Theatre home. The assorted residents and guests of a Russian country house (evocatively if minimally rendered by Santo Loquasto) that make up the play's cast of characters are, by and large, ruled by grand passions and prone to grand gestures. If played too big, these people seem unbearably foolish; if played too small, they come off as pathetic, or worse, uninteresting.

Unfortunately, Russian director Vlachesalv Dolgachev and his uneven cast -- led by[...]