The American playwright Tennessee Williams adapted the play as The Notebook of Trigorin, which premiered in 1981. That year, Thomas Kilroy's adaptation, The Seagull also premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor wrote an adaptation called His Greatness. Collections of his stories that Chekhov prepared and published, or, in the case of The Prank, attempted to publish. Letters on the Short Story, the Drama, and Other Literary Topics, by Anton Chekhov. Selected and Edited by Louis S. Friedland. London. 1924. Michael Goldman has said of the elusive quality of Chekhov's comedies: "Having learned that Chekhov is comic... Chekhov is comic in a very special, paradoxical way. His plays depend, as comedy does, on the vitality of the actors to make pleasurable what would otherwise be painfully awkward—inappropriate speeches, missed connections, faux pas, stumbles, childishness—but as part of a deeper pathos; the stumbles are not pratfalls but an energized, graceful dissolution of purpose." [129] Influence on dramatic arts [ edit ]

The play was the basis for the 1974 opera The Seagull by Thomas Pasatieri to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie.Some early translations of The Seagull have come under criticism from modern Russian scholars. Marian Fell's translation, in particular, has been criticized for its elementary mistakes and total ignorance of Russian life and culture. [42] [44] Peter France, translator and author of the book The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, wrote of Chekhov's multiple adaptations: The Seagull was first translated into English for a performance at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, in November 1909. [42] Since that time, there have been numerous translations of the text—between 1998 and 2004 alone there were 25 published versions. [42] In the introduction to his own version, Tom Stoppard wrote: "You can't have too many English Seagulls: at the intersection of all of them, the Russian one will be forever elusive." [43] In fact, the problems start with the title of the play: there's no sea anywhere near the play's settings, so the bird in question was in all likelihood a lake-dwelling gull such as the common gull ( larus canus), rather than a nautical variant. In Russian both kinds of birds are named chayka, simply meaning "gull", as in English. However, the title persists as it is much more euphonious in English than the much shorter and blunter "The Gull", which comes across as too forceful and direct to represent the encompassing vague and partially hidden feelings beneath the surface. Therefore, the faint reference to the sea has been seen as a more fitting representation of the intent of the play. Gilman, Richard. 1997. Chekhov's Plays: An Opening into Eternity. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07256-2

Chekhov and the Art Theatre, in Stanislavski's words, were united in a common desire "to achieve artistic simplicity and truth on the stage"; Allen 2001, 11.

ACT IV

The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov. Edited by Lillian Hellman and translated by Sidonie Lederer. New York. 1955. ISBN 0-374-51838-6. Trigorin asks Arkadina if they can stay at the estate. She flatters and cajoles him until he agrees to return with her to Moscow. After she has left the room, Nina comes to say her final goodbye to Trigorin and to inform him that she is running away to become an actress against her parents' wishes. They kiss passionately and make plans to meet again in Moscow.