Skip to main contentTwo pairs of couples--a middle-aged academic pair and a younger variation of them, an older, retired husband and wife, and a reptilian version of them--have, in the thick of life's storms, each other to cling to, even if their clasping is born more from desperation than desire. Throughout his career playwright Edward Albee has peeled the label off of "happy marriages" to see what lies within, and concurrent productions of his work--the well-known Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the seldom-seen Seascape--give Portland audiences an opportunity to compare and contrast what Albee has discovered.
Profile is to be commended for including Seascape as part of its Albee season, as it's not so commonly produced as other of the playwright's work. An older middle-aged couple, Nancy and Charlie, is discovered at leisure among some sand dunes. Nancy paints a seascape while Charlie has stretched out on a blanket to nap. Yet not all is idyllic, and we soon discover that the two are quite stranded in their shared life--washed up, as it were, between the unfathomable depths of sky and sea.
A battle of wills ensues between husband and wife, with Nancy demanding that their life be lived to its fullest, while Charlie argues for the solace of rest. But this loving racket of bickering is soon interrupted by another couple, Leslie and Sarah, who are large, green lizards (Albee's first cross-species meeting). What follows is, as one critic charmingly labeled it, a "Darwinian comedy of manners," as the two couples realize the limits of their knowledge and perceptions, and eventually find a new philosophical understanding of life. Seascape ends with one of the most beautiful and hopeful final lines in the theater: "All right. Begin," launching a meaningful connection between the human and the saurian.
Jane Unger's production has much to recommend, despite some deficiencies. Though generally well paced, Unger does rush the ending as well as a few important character transitions. The primary problem is with JoAnn Johnson's Nancy. Although Johnson is putting in some of her best work in years, she's yet to fully inhabit the role and has again fallen victim to the limitations of her vocal style. Johnson is at her very best when interacting with her fellow actors, but with Nancy's monologues (of which there are a few) there are too many moments when the actor seems lost to the song of her own voice and so misses pivotal shifts in character.
Kimberly Howard's Sarah is also unfinished, though Tony St. Clair's Leslie is marvelously understated in a role that in lesser hands often becomes cartoonish. As Charlie, Tobias Anderson puts in a fine, workmanlike performance, capturing completely the good-natured irascibility of a settled-in, devolving man who regains awe for each dawn's promise.
Though Douglas Hout's lizard costumes are too Toho Studio, set designer Curt Enderle provides a good seascape.
The house style at Portland Center Stage is, we've come to realize, presentational.
Although there's more "connecting" between Nancy Keystone's cast in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? than, say, among the cast of Chris Coleman's The Seagull, there's still a muddying of motives and relationships as the actors play to the audience rather than to each other. We know where we're headed at the top when Margo Skinner, as Martha, delivers the line "What a dump" to the stalls. That the cast must simultaneously traverse the expanse of the Newmark stage while counting the house only makes matters worse.
Without connecting, the actors fall back too frequently on marked-down emotionalism and laugh hunting. Skinner's Martha is studied crapulence, while Nicole Marck's Honey would seem more at home in Elmer Rice's Dream Girl. Kevin Corstange's Nick is more promising, though he has rather active, un-Nick-like hands. In a town whose motto should be "acting is gesticulating," Corstange is in more physical control than most. But his wafting hands, as delicate as a hula enthusiast's, does not a middleweight champion make.
The surprise is Allen Nause's George. Surprise because Nause manages to overcome the multiple handicaps of this show to deliver a finely considered, three-dimensional performance that is an advertisement for honest simplicity. All the humor and pathos of Albee's creature is contained here without constant reference (or deference) to the sea of heads in front. These nearly four hours of Sturm und fang seem to pass only when Nause is on stage.
As for the stage, Douglas D. Smith's McMansion seems as bloated as Skinner's theatrics, with some rather ill-considered properties. Putting aside the pedantic question of why a professor in the 1960s would be brandishing a copy of Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On, why is a professor living with groaning shelves of Reader's Digest Condensed Books?
As always with Portland Center Stage, more care might do much.
The Profile Theatre Project at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 242-0080. 8 pm Thursdays- Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 16. $12 (students)-$25.
Portland Center Stage at the Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 274-6588. 7 pm Tuesdays- Wednesdays, 8 pm Thursdays- Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 9. $12-$47.
Profile and PCS will both offer discounted tickets to audience members who present ticket stubs from the other's production.
WWeek 2015