Theater Review—

A Supremely Enjoyable ‘Seascape’

By Julie Stern

The Alexandria Room was packed on the evening of February 25, with an extra row of chairs set up at the last minute. Word is getting out that Stay Kats Theater presentations — live play readings by Equity professionals — are a good bet for a Saturday night’s entertainment.

On a mostly bare stage, two canvas beach chairs and a pile of black boxes were the only concession to set design last weekend for a staged reading of Seascape, and people sitting toward the back were squirming to see over and between the heads of those in front of them, as Charlie and Nancy (Tom Zingarelli and Barbara Rhoades) launched into a rather typical Edward Albee conversation: two married people sniping at each other and stolidly refusing to see the point of what the other person was trying to say…

And then, surprise, came the lizards…  Sean Hannon and Wynter Kullman as Leslie and Sarah, two human-size creatures in speckly navy, green and white spandex, with huge green pointy manes coming out of their heads and trailing down their backs… Oh, boy- that made everyone in the audience sit up and pay attention!

At first Charlie thinks he and Nancy must be dead, poisoned by the liver paste Nancy insisted on bringing to the beach with them (in case they dropped the roast chicken in the sand and would be left with nothing to eat). But then, as the lizards speak to them in English, communication begins and the play takes off.

Seascape,  which won Albee the Pulitzer Prize back in 1975, is perhaps his funniest play, and certainly one with a happier ending than say Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  or Tiny Alice. Obviously surrealistic, a sort of Thurber-esque fable, it deals with transitional stages in life, and the fear and anxiety attendant upon leaving familiar patterns and structures in order to strike out for something new.

Their children are grown, and flown the coop. Charlie is recently retired from his corporate job, and he and Nancy are “enjoying” a brief interim vacation at the shore. While for Charlie, retirement represents a chance to finally “rest” and do nothing, after a busy and strenuous career, Nancy is chafing at the bit, anxious to travel, seek new adventures, and get on with the next stage of life. 

This is what they are fighting about — Charlie’s intransigence, and what he sees as Nancy’s unrealistic visions — when they are interrupted by the lizards, who frighten them out of their self-absorbtion. Charlie wants a stick, or a gun — the primordial male faced with the need to defend his mate.

Ironically, the lizards are equally frightened and confused by these new humans. They, too are caught in an evolutionary moment, reptiles crawling out of the sea onto the land,  forced to adjust to a strange new environment.

As the two males bluster and posture, it is the two women who make friendlier overtures. Once it is clear that these four speak a common language (although the lizards are woefully ignorant about the trappings of shore life), Nancy and Sarah have a conversation about childbearing. Nancy has three children. She explains breastfeeding to a reptile who has no idea what breasts are. Sarah has laid 7,000, and never given much thought to her progeny.

The lizards understand words, but ideas are more difficult. Grudgingly, Charlie explains evolution to them, and the concept of emotions.  At first the lizards don’t understand. This is not part of their experience. But when Charlie asks Sarah if she would be upset if she never saw her husband again, and urges her to think about it, she starts to cry. And then Leslie becomes angry. Why did you make my wife cry?

Love, fear and anger, for the first time, the lizards are feeling emotions. They cannot retreat back into the comfortable water. They have evolved, on the way to becoming human. And for Charlie and Nancy comes the realization that their lives too are in a state of flux. For them it is the evolution of a marriage; their traditional roles are  changing, but  long as they are alive, they must be prepared to leave the familiar and comfortable, and move along on the road to new challenges.

The whole result was entertaining and enjoyable, with just enough food for thought mixed in with the comedy to send the audience home talking.

Up there with the Friends of Music chamber concerts, Stray Kats presentations are a welcome addition to the way the old town hall can be used for the cultural benefit of the town. It deserves to be supported, and is well worth the price of a ticket — which, for live professional quality entertainment, is supremely reasonable.

(Note: The next program at Edmond Town Hall scheduled by Stray Kats will be a reading of Steve Bellwood’s play, By the Heirs of St Patrick, an irreverently funny new work in the tradition of Waiting For Guffman about the annual St. Patrick’s day revue offered by an amateur performance troupe in an Ireland pub.

Tickets are $25 when purchased in advance, and $30 at the door. Showtime is 7 pm.

While the readings are traditionally followed by Q&A with the actors and Artistic Director Kate Katcher, the March event will also include hors d’oeuvres from Sweet Mustard Shop of Stratford and Guinness courtesy of Cork & Barrel of Newtown.

For further information, contact Kate Katcher at 203-514-2221 or info@straykatstheatrecompany.org, or visit www.straykatstheatrecompany.org.)