'Seascape' is masterful at TheatreWorks
2013-05-07
Kudos have to be extended to director Chesley Plemmons and his capable cast for the current performance of Edward Albee's "Seascape" at New Milford's TheatreWorks. The production, right down to the eye-catching set design by Glenn Couture and Richard Pettibone, is another memorable event in the history of this community production company.
And it's no surprise that playwright Albee's first off-Broadway hit, "The Zoo Story," was double-billed with Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape." Comparisons between the two dramatists are inevitable. The set design for "Seascape" could have doubled for the one in "Happy Days:" a stretch of sandy beach spread out against an unforgiving sky.
What is more, Albee and Beckett have both hit upon similar kinds of conceits clashing dramatically with seemingly routine or inconsequential dialogue. In "Happy Days," Winnie and Willie chatter on about this or that while she is buried in sand up to her waist in the first act, and discovered up to her neck in sand in the second.
In "Seascape," Nancy (Noel Desiato) and Charlie (J. Scott Williams) prate on about old and new experiences, self-actualization, and marital crises while a pair of humanoid lizard creatures (James Hipp and Desirae Carle) in from the sea shatter the homespun aspect of their private moments together.
So both Beckett and Albee are masters at taking the action to new existential levels by introducing devices guaranteed to change the dramatic landscape altogether. But in "Seascape," Albee, more than Beckett, has the advantage of a keener sense of humor.
The lizard people, Leslie and Sarah, speak English. But the phylogenetic differences between them and Nancy and Charlie are huge. Attempting to understand human foibles, or, conversely, reptilian ways and idioms, is at the heart of the comedy's appeal for audiences. What Beckett's play lacks, Albee's "Seascape" provides in profusion: delicious ironies wrought by the attempts of two different species to get on the same wave-length of understanding.
Noel Desiato (arguably our leading area actress) was outstanding as Nancy, a wife whose need for new life experiences and animated attempts to engage her husband were unremitting. J. Scott Williams, as Charlie, exuded patience and a lower-key enthusiasm for life (except when recalling how as a younger boy he could use stones to sink to the bottom of a pool or lake and remain there).
James Hipp, as Leslie, puts in what is probably his best community theater performance as the lizard from the sea who is forever bemused by human ways, to the point of occasional consternation and ire.
Desirae Carle, as Sarah, provided an attractive stark contrast to Hipp's lizard man, and one that on occasion mirrored Nancy's not so invisible attempts to hassle her husband.
Set design by Glenn Couture and Richard Pettibone was, as usual, a thing of beauty, as was Lesley Neilson Bowman's costume designs for lizards. Komodo dragons, eat your hearts out! Director Plemmons and his cast and backstage crew are what community theater should be about. Bravo!