The Seagulls Reviews

As previously posted here ( 'The Seagull' with Carey Mulligan Opens on Broadway Tonight (10/2) ), Carey Mulligan just had her New York Broadway Stage debut with The Seagulls as it premiered last night @ Kerr Theatre.

Here are some Reviews (mostly positive) with Carey Mulligan mentions from...

Variety.com (Positive Review):

The luminous Mulligan plays her as a guileless but sympathetic provincial, hungering for a career as an actress, but even more for the "fame... real, spectacular fame" that comes with it. While her tearful fragility makes her seem an entirely different species from Arkadina, Nina's manic determination to endure, even after she's been chewed up and spat out by Trigorin, gives the two women commonalities.


Fox 59/Associated Press (Rave Review):

Trigorin mesmerizes Konstantin's beloved Nina, an impressionable local young woman, played by the tremulous, bewitching Carey Mulligan. Nina takes the biggest journey in "The Seagull," traveling from exuberant innocent to sad realist, and it's heartbreaking to watch the luminous Mulligan transformed into a wan, disillusioned and thoroughly used woman.

USA Today (Poor Review, but raved on Carey Mulligan's portrayal of Nina):

Leading lady Kristin Scott Thomas, who earned an Olivier Award in the Royal Court's London staging, is a witty, poignant Arkadina, revealing a nervous fragility in the fading thespian who lives with and clings to Trigorin. As the doomed ingénue Nina, who suffers even more for her lover's callousness, fellow West End import Carey Mulligan is equally lovely and moving, at once a fresh-faced foil and a worthy rival to the elegant but vulnerable Arkadina.

TalkinBroadway.com (Positive Review. Not a good comment on Carey and her character Nina):

This is never more clear than with Mulligan, whose Nina ends as just the jaded artist her earliest appearances predict.

New York Times (Positive Review. Raved on Carey M.):

Ms. Mulligan’s delectably dewy but determined Nina is just the girl to rouse him from his lethargy. More than any actress I’ve seen, she captures the raw hunger within Nina’s ambition, the ravening vitality as well the vulnerability. This is no mere fluttery sacrificial seagull. There’s a reason that the mother-fixated Konstantin falls in love with her.

Theater Mania (Rave Review for both The Seagulls and Carey Mulligan):

While Scott Thomas' success is somewhat expected, given her film and stage pedigree, Carey Mulligan's stunning turn as the impressionable and eventually destroyed Nina arrives less heralded. Playing Nina is often a perilous shoal on which young thespians founder, but the fair, fresh-faced Mulligan runs the character's gamut with touching ardor. Entering breathlessly on the run in one of set-and-costume designer Hildegard Bechtler's delicate Russian-summer dresses and then delivering the plummy speech Konstantin writes for the play his mother mocks, Mulligan instantly sends early Tony Award vibes. At play's end, she forcibly attacks the last scene where Nina, now a failed actress, returns from Moscow to visit the increasingly despondent Konstantin. While Mulligan isn't the thoroughly broken doll that Nina can be, the devastation she's experienced is visible enough to make an indelible impression.

The Newark Star-Ledger (Negative Review. Mixed comments on CM's Nina.):

Although Carey Mulligan is a nicely ingenuous Nina, the final scene she shares with Crook goes flat because there's no chemistry between them.