Eboni Thompson is Irina in the UNM production of “The Seagull.” (Courtesy of Jesse Caid Shelton)

There’s always something simmering beneath a highly polished surface.

In the classic works of Shakespeare, characters usually said what they meant. All that changed around 1850 with the advent of psychology and the plays of Strindberg, Ibsen and Anton Chekhov.

The University of New Mexico Department of Theatre and Dance will explore that difference with Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” opening next weekend in Rodey Theatre.

“Psychology was beginning to talk about hidden motives and desires that inform the ways we behave,” director Joe Alberti said.

To take Chekhov’s writing literally is to miss his dramatic depth. Characters tend to skirt issues rather than directly confront them. He mines his plays with subtext, or words that remain unspoken, Alberti said.

“The language isn’t to be taken literally,” the director continued. “There’s something else going on under the line.”

“The Seagull” examines love, loss and what it means to be an artist in a society obsessed with celebrity. Packed with passion, jealousy and regret, its focus is a renowned actress, her troubled son and their friends as they navigate a maze of romantic triangles.

A famous but middlebrow story writer named Boris pens plays for the celebrity actress Irina. Her son Konstanin is a struggling playwright in love with the ingenue Nina. When Konstanin shows Irina the script he’s written especially for Nina, she tears it up amid a volley of insults. He cancels the production. But Nina sees Irina as a mentor and she soon falls for Boris, Irina’s younger boyfriend.

“She sees the older guy as a ticket to the acting world,” Alberti said. “The young man realizes his girlfriend is pulling away from him and he kills a seagull. She’s alone onstage and he drops the seagull at her feet as a symbol.”

Boris never directly addresses the seduction, but Albert speculates he’s been trying to lure Nina since he met her. In the end, the two run off to Moscow together.