Treplyov’s play is set on a barren, abandoned version of Earth, many years after a terrible apocalypse. Treplyov calls the guests down to the lake and insists the performance begin immediately. She kisses Treplyov and explains that she’s managed to sneak away from her controlling father and stepmother, who live across the lake, for only an hour’s time. The men discuss Arkadina’s narcissism and jealousy, as well as her ongoing affair with Trigorin, until Nina arrives, breathless and excited.

Treplyov tells Sorin that he’s anxious about his career as a writer, and worries that people only indulge his work because of his status as Arkadina’s son. Treplyov fusses about the stage, double-checking special effects with the workman Yakov while he confides in Sorin that he’s worried his love and his muse Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya will be late for her performance. Among the other guests at the estate are the caretaker Ilya Afanasevich Shamraev, his wife Polina Andreevna, and their daughter Masha, who pines for Treplyov a poor schoolteacher named Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko, who is hopelessly in love with Masha and Evgeny Serveevich Dorn, a country doctor and Sorin’s longtime friend. Down near the expansive lake, a makeshift stage has been built-Sorin’s nephew Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplyov is putting on an avant-garde play for Sorin and the rest of his summer guests, including Treplyov’s mother and Sorin’s sister Arkadina Irina Nikolaevna, a famous actress, and her lover Boris Alekseevich Trigorin, a famous writer. Act One of The Seagull opens on a summer evening at Pyotr Nikolaevich Sorin’s country estate.

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov