My role in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, Sorin, is the older brother of Irina, a middle- aged actress who is one of the main characters in the play. When we meet him in the first act, he is recently retired, already dependent on a walking stick or cane to get around, and, in general, dissatisfied with what he has done with his life and where he has ended up. Over the course of the play Sorin’s physical condition declines, to the point of being confined to a wheelchair in