Chekhov called The Sea Gull a comedy, and perhaps it is, if you're watching at some great Olympian distance from the cares, sorrows, hopes, and joys of human life. For mortals, however, this play stands as the incarnation of all the dreams and despair, the almost unbearable exhilaration and the truly unbearable anguish, that is the essence of youth. The Sea Gull is the sharpest, the most achingly bittersweet, of Chekhov's great plays.