It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev.

[3] Stanislavski's direction caused The Seagull to be perceived as a tragedy through overzealousness with the concept of subtext, whereas Chekhov intended it to be a comedy.

Chekhov eventually moved in, and in a letter written in October 1895 he wrote: I am writing a play which I shall probably not finish before the end of November.

It's a comedy, there are three women's parts, six men's, four acts, landscapes (view over a lake); a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, and tons of love.

Yes, my vanity was stung, but you know it was not a bolt from the blue; I was expecting a failure and was prepared for it, as I warned you with perfect sincerity beforehand.And a month later: I thought that if I had written and put on the stage a play so obviously brimming over with monstrous defects, I had lost all instinct and that, therefore, my machinery must have gone wrong for good.The eventual success of the play, both in the remainder of its first run and in the subsequent staging by the Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavski, encouraged Chekhov to remain a playwright and led to the overwhelming success of his next endeavor, Uncle Vanya, and indeed to the rest of his dramatic work.

Pyotr and his guests gather at an outdoor stage to see an unconventional play that Irina's son, Konstantin Treplev, has written and directed.

The play-within-a-play features Nina Zarechnaya, a young woman who lives on a neighboring estate, as the "soul of the world" in a time far in the future.

Irina laughs at the play, finding it ridiculous and incomprehensible; the performance ends prematurely after audience interruption and Konstantin storms off in humiliation.

The schoolteacher Semyon Medvedenko loves Masha, the daughter of the estate's steward Ilya Shamrayev and his wife Polina Andryevna.

Arkadina, after reminiscing about happier times, engages in a heated argument with the house steward Shamrayev and decides to leave.

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.

Various characters discuss what has happened in the two years that have passed: Nina and Trigorin lived together in Moscow for a time until he abandoned her and went back to Arkadina.

[9] This approach was intended to facilitate the unified expression of the inner action that Stanislavski perceived to be hidden beneath the surface of the play in its subtext.

[12] The production opened on 17 December 1898 with a sense of crisis in the air in the theatre; most of the actors were mildly self-tranquilised with Valerian drops.

Chekhov's unwillingness to explain or expand on the script forced Stanislavski to dig beneath the surface of the text in ways that were new in theatre.

[19] The Moscow Art Theatre to this day bears the seagull as its emblem to commemorate the historic production that gave it its identity.

[54] 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.

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.

[79] Libby Appel did a new version that premiered in 2011 at the Marin Theatre in Mill Valley using newly discovered material from Chekhov's original manuscripts.

[80] In 2011, Benedict Andrews re-imagined the work as being set on a modern Australian beach in his production of the play at Sydney's Belvoir Theatre, which starred Judy Davis, David Wenham and Maeve Darmody.

In October 2011, it was announced that a contemporary Hamptons-set film adaptation, Relative Insanity, will be directed by the acting coach Larry Moss, starring David Duchovny, Helen Hunt, Maggie Grace and Joan Chen.

[81][82][needs update] In 2013, a deconstruction of the play by Aaron Posner, set in the modern day under the title Stupid Fucking Bird, was premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.; it won the 2014 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical[83] and has been staged widely across American theatres.

In 2014, Takarazuka Revues's Star Troupe performed a musical version of the play, which was adapted and directed by Naoko Koyonagi.

[84] A 2022 gender-fluid adaptation of the Tom Stoppard version was completed by the Doris Place Players to great success in Los Angeles.

The play was produced Off-Broadway by The New Group in 2023 and starred Parker Posey, Nat Wolff, Ato Essandoh, and Hari Nef.

A new version by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier, starring Emma Corrin as Nina and Cate Blanchett as Arkadina, is set to premiere at London's Barbican Centre in February 2025.

Directed by Ostermeier, the adaptation is also due to star Priyanga Burford, Tom Burke, Tanya Reynolds, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jason Watkins.

Christian Camargo directed a 2014 film adaptation of the play, titled Days and Nights, set in rural New England during the 1980s.

[88] It was released on May 11, 2018, by Sony Pictures Classics; directed by Michael Mayer with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, starring Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan.

A contemporary Afrikaans-language film adaptation directed by Christiaan Olwagen, titled Die Seemeeu, debuted at the Kyknet Silwerskermfees on 23 August 2018.