Why is The Seagull a naturalist play?

The Seagull (1895) is a play written by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, and it is representative of his dramatic style. Naturalism in theater is a style that aims to create verisimilitude, or the illusion of reality, through character, acting, language, and dramatic structure.In naturalism, the actions of each character arise directly from the environment and time period that the playwright sets them in. In The Seagull, we see no clear protagonist but...

The Seagull (1895) is a play written by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, and it is representative of his dramatic style. Naturalism in theater is a style that aims to create verisimilitude, or the illusion of reality, through character, acting, language, and dramatic structure.

In naturalism, the actions of each character arise directly from the environment and time period that the playwright sets them in. In The Seagull, we see no clear protagonist but an array of characters who are quietly desperate to transcend their personal sense of failure and dissatisfaction. Similar to the Russian zeitgeist of the late nineteenth century, these characters complain and joke about needed personal and societal changes but are ineffectual in making these changes. True to naturalism, these characters represent the working class, artist class, and the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, the acting style employed in many productions of The Seagull is psychological realism, which is focused on the motivations of the characters.

The language in The Seagull mimics reality by presenting speech that you might overhear out of the mouths of late nineteenth century Russian bourgeoisie. This speech is full of unfinished sentences, interruptions, pauses, and conversational phrases. Moreover, underneath the speech there is frequently a subtext at work, revealing that characters do not always say what they mean—just like people in real life. 

The dramatic structure of The Seagull does not follow a traditional Aristotelian arc, where the action of the play culminates in a singular climax and then resolves. Instead, the structure is closer to a feeling of real life, where dramatic tension is pulled taught by the conflicting desires of a network of characters.