I have a confession: Since discovering my passion for the theatre, I've intentionally avoided the works of Anton Chekov. So many of my theatre friends consider Chekov to be the pinnacle of playwrights, placing him even higher than Shakespeare, yet fearing that I'd be excommunicated should I not like his works, I stayed away from them altogether. But now, after seeing the opening-night performance of Augustana College's The Seagull, I must form and share my opinion. So here it is: It turns out I like Chekov. A lot.
Set in 17th Century France, Augustana College's production of the Molière comedy The Learned Ladies takes place in the salon of a Paris manor, and among the first things you notice about Adam Parboosingh's scenic design are the stacks of books standing five feet high from the floor. It's actually impossible not to notice them, as the (prop) books have been painted in a variety of bright colors that make them resemble oversize, rectangular Skittles, or perhaps the reading material for Belle's library in Disney's Beauty & the Beast. They're certainly eye-catching, but there's no way anyone could mistake them for, you know, real books, and The Learned Ladies itself turns out to be a lot like them - deliberately artificial, kind of amusing, and, unfortunately, pretty much divorced from real-world experience.
