CARLSBAD — The New Village Arts Theatre brings the portrayal of an older couple battling with each other over how to live life after retirement and child raising, and their subsequent strange encounter in the production of Edward Albee’s “Seascape.”“I love Albee,” said the play’s director Kim Strassburger.
“You can’t predict where he is going to go. I mean as you can see with “Seascape”…the play seems very naturalistic at the top and then suddenly it takes a u-turn with the appearance of these lizards into absurdity. And I love that unpredictability.”
That’s right, she said lizards.
Jack Missett and Dana Case play Charlie and Nancy, a long-married couple who are challenged with what to do without work or family obligations.
In act two, the couple comes across a couple of lizard-like sea creatures named Leslie and Sarah, played by Justin Lang and Amanda Morrow.
As members of the New Village Arts Theatre ensemble, the four cast members have worked with each other in past productions, which show through the actors’ closeness and intimacy they share onstage.
In particular, Missett and Case said they have played husband and wife in six other productions, and cheating lovers in another.
For them, “Seascape” presented the opportunity to bring yet another partnership to their lives onstage.
The two took inspiration from their own life experiences, to the point where in some cases, “It became a blur between Jack and Dana and Charlie and Nancy,” said Missett.
They said they also based their characters on the idea of a wave and a rock, fitting given the play’s setting on a beach.
As the wave, Nancy badly wants to travel the world and explore, urging her husband at one point, “Be young again! My God, Charlie, be young!”
Charlie in response says that as far as his youth goes: “I’d rather remember.”
Lang and Morrow on the other hand, are challenged with playing non-human creatures.
“I was really excited to get the chance to play a lizard and let go of acting,” said Lang. “I have no clue how (a line is) going to come out as a lizard.”
“It’s so cool to be outside of a human…it changes our boundaries,” said Morrow.
“Seascape” runs Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May 18 through June 9. For tickets, visit newvillagearts.org.
