January 17.2003 * Jaat a a t j^
THEATER
............... '▼ ................
Albee all over
Two theater companies celebrate
the m aster of American drama
by
C h r is t o p h e r M c Q u a in
ortlanders have numerous opportunities
during the next several months to partici
pate in the bona fide case of Edward
Albee fever sweeping the Rose C ity (as
well as the rest of the country).
Portland C enter Stage is producing the gay
playwright’s W ho’s Afraid o f Virginia W oolf?
through Feh. 9 at Newmark Theatre. O n e of
A lbee’s best-known works, this complex, fasci
nating (three-hour!) drama reveals an evening
in the life of married couple George and
Martha drunkenly playing host to a younger
couple in their home following a faculty party.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the river,
Profile Theatre Project presents Seascape
through Feb. 16 at Theater! Theatre! as part of
its all-Albee season. (See review.)
Those who attend Profile’s Jan. 19 matinee
can stay after the show for a “mat chat,” which,
according to marketing and development direc
tor George Taylor, is “a great chance for the
audience to talk with the director and actors
about the production they have just seen.”
O n Feb. 8, the man him self will be at Port
land State U niversity’s Lincoln Hall for a free
Seascape-oriented Q & A . “T h e seeds for
arranging this visit were planted hack in
June when I attended a playwrights confer
e n c e ... with which Edward A lbee’s been
involved for the past 10 years,” says Jane
Unger, Profile’s artistic director. “He was
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Pizza, Salad, Sandwiches,
and Oregon Microbrews
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extremely pleased that
Profile was doing a season
o f his work.”
Financially, though, get
ting Edward Albee to your
“new and small theater com
pany,” she continues, is
daunting. “We could have
Nancy and Charlie
brought him to visit through
Project’s Seascape
his lecture agent.... Howev
er, it was too large a financial undertaking....
Instead we’re working with him directly. He’s
been extremely generous in agreeing to speak to
Profile’s audience and will be donating his fee
back to his Playwright’s Foundation.”
Adds Mead Hunter, literary director at
Portland C enter Stage: “Edward Albee is a
national treasure. T h e resurgence of interest in
[his] work these days proves that people have
caught on to that— again.... It was easy for
Americans to forget about him during the years
when he wasn’t creating large-scale ‘hits.’ But
as recent years have proven, he is a major artist
working at the top of his creative powers.” j o l
Tickets to W ho ’ s A fraid of V irginia W oolf ?
at Newmark Theatre, 1111 S.W. Broadway, are
$12-$47 from the box office or 503-274-6588.
Tickets to SEASCAPE at Theater! Theatre!,
3430 S .E . Belmont St., are $!2-$25 from
503-242-0080.
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netgnbor’kood b a r
I 3 1 9 1 TO
Tried it yet?
Now there's breakfast
have quite a day at the beach in Profile’s Theatre
R E V 1 EIIU
I espite the expansive implications o f the
play’s title, Profile Theatre Project’s new
production of Edward Albee’s Seascape is
perfectly suited for the company’s inti
m ate venue at Theater! Theatre!
The tw o-act comedic drama, which won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1975, benefits greatly from a
sense of isolation for its surprising surrealism to
work. Thanks to the closeness of the space and
Curt Enderle’s unassuming minia ture-seashore
set, the play’s action really does feel cut off, far
away from the everyday— perfect for the work’s
expressly reflective, metaphorical tone.
Seascape presents the audience with an
upper-middle-class retired couple, Nancy
(JoAnn Johnson) and Charlie (Tobias Ander
son), who find themselves in the midst of an
ennui-infused marital crisis during a day at the
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beach— and their encounter with creatures of
the sea, specifically what appear to be two giant, I
talking lizards named Sarah (Kimberly Howard)
and Leslie (Tony St. C lair).
It’s Nancy who carries the burden of the
play’s overarching evolutionary metaphor con
cerning the opposing modes of stasis and mobili
ty, complacency and engagement, life and death.
“Grow or die,” Albee tells us through her. It’s
hardly a new or radical idea about aging and
vitality— a theme just as effectively dealt with
on The Golden Girls— but Albee’s ability Co pin
point very specific pockets of human pain ami
emotional urgency effectively brings it home.
W ith N ancy’s incessant pleading with her
husband— a man content to lie in the sun and
wait to die— to turn their golden years into an
adventure, she’s a sort of bearer o f existential
life force, refusing to make things comfortable
for Charlie— in fact making things uncomfort
able in order to keep him moving.
Albee’s plays have been said to contain in
their heterosexual relationships veiled, symbolic
depictions of gay male couples. It’s an interest
ing and plausible way to interpret Seascape, but,
in the end, it seems beside the point, as does
N ancy and Charlie’s very apparent material
security. Their leisure-class existence deserves a
theme play o f its own, but it’s a context that
allows a deeper humanistic exploration of uni
versai emotional and spiritual worries.
There are noticeable flaws— the playwright
coasts a little on the lizards, who are obvious
constructions in aid of his them atic scheme,
which itself comes to seem a tad self-
impressed— but Profile’s staging o f the piece, the
performances (especially Anderson’s) and some
sharp life-and-death insights should make atten
dance a priority for Portland theatergoers. JH
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