Quotable Quotes: On the Red Carpet with Albee and the Stars of Seascape
WHAT: Opening night of the revival of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Seascape, which features two human characters and two lizards
WHERE: Tavern on the Green
WHEN: Monday, November 21, 2005
"Edward Albee says it is realism. It's two lizards who come up on a beach and talk to two human beings. Finally, you just have to say, 'Yes, that's what it is." —Director Mark Lamos on describing the hard-to-categorize play
"I don't know what it's about. I don't think in those terms. I know what happens, but I don't know what it means." -Playwright Edward Albee
"As George's character says at one point, 'Progress is a set of assumptions.' He doesn't know if it's for the better or not. That I think is another thing that audiences understand." —Frances Sternhagen, who plays Nancy in Seascape
"[Elizabeth Marvel and I] did some [acting like animals] in drama school together. It's funny because when you're in drama school, and you're being a penguin, you kind of think, 'This is never going to be relevant.' But lo and behold, years later, we're both doing it together again." —Fredrick Weller, who plays Leslie, on his Juilliard training with co-star Elizabeth Marvel
"We did a fair amount of observing. I went to the reptile house at the zoo. Fred and I just created a vocabulary together because you can't fully do a lizard because they're just built differently. So we just took on certain mannerisms and implications with our bodies. It's sort of our interpretation of a lizard." —Elizabeth Marvel, who plays Sarah
"We've worked together a little bit but we did our first plays together fifty years ago, so we've been friends for a long time. So it's been a very long marriage. She did marry another man and have six children, but she and I have remained great friends and it's like a lovely marriage. She's a wonderful actress and we have a good rapport. It's a delight to be on the stage with her." —George Grizzard, who plays Charlie, on co-star Frances Sternhagen
"It feels like we're an old married couple. It's funny. We're very comfortable with each other. He's the one that called me and said, 'I think you ought to do this!' And I read it, and I just thought, hmm, so much to learn. But it is definitely worth it." —Frances Sternhagen on her relationship with co-star George Grizzard
"Maybe it's a little more pertinent now since the whole concept of evolution is being questioned by the know-nothing Republican right. Yes, maybe the play's a little more pertinent now." —Edward Albee on how audience reaction differs now versus when the play debuted on Broadway 30 years ago
"It was surprisingly delightful. I had heard that he could be little scary. He's been lovely. He's such an awesome playwright. He's been delightful." —Elizabeth Marvel on having Edward Albee in on the rehearsal process
"Of course it's a thrill to have Edward involved in the production, and he's involved in the casting and the design and every aspect of it. I've loved that. I like working with him very much. It's the second Albee play I've done over the last few years. Obviously, his contributions to the process are fascinating and useful." —Director Mark Lamos
"You know, for a while there, Edward didn't want any photographs of the two young people, as he put it, because he didn't want people to know what they looked like. But everyone's talking about it, so I don't know that anybody doesn't know now. They're so good. The costumes are extraordinary, aren't they?" —Frances Sternhagen on keeping photos of the lizards out of the press
"Now that it's open and everybody's telling everybody who everybody, you can run all the photos of lizards you want to. I'm just trying to keep a surprise as long as possible. It's very hard to do when people remember the play from 30 years ago. I just didn't want to kill the wonderful surprise too quickly." —Edward Albee
"I had done the play four years ago, so I had seen other lizards in costumes. I expected lizards and I got lizards." —George Grizzard on seeing Frederick Weller and Elizabeth Marvel in costume for the first time
"I just find the enterprise of Seascape enthralling. There's something that I love more than anything else about the theater, and it's when it can provide a mystery and that seems to ask questions and answer them in some way you that don't consciously understand, but you understand subconsciously." —Mark Lamos
"It seems to move people. It's very funny, but it's seems to hit home right now, things that people are thinking about." —Frances Sternhagen on the play
"It's not just holding the position. It's also a 20-foot rake, that set, I think it looks much more gentle than it actual is. So we're having to support our bodies at very weird angles and often with our legs above where our arms are and our heads are, so it's got it's unique challenges. I stretch a lot. I do a lot of yoga these days." —Elizabeth Marvel on the challenges of playing a lizard
"The humor. The ideas. Edward is always stimulating to act and to watch and it's an honor to be a part of it. And I like the part. It's tiring. It's very tiring for an old person, but it's worth it." —George Grizzard on what drew him to the play
"The play when it was first done, first of all, it was directed by the author and that's not necessarily a good thing. He's such a wonderful writer, but you usually need another eye. I think the director here, Mark Lamos, has done a wonderful job with shaking the play and finding how to get the important things out of it." —Frances Sternhagen on the original production versus the current one
"Frankly, I went through the most awful postpartum depression once we got to the point where I let them alone and they were up and running, and we had press starting to come and I went home. It was very depressing because I felt as if I was wrenched away from a family, a very close family. I didn't want to leave the beach or the warmth of that feeling of working with them." —Mark Lamos
"I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts." —Edward Albee on the impetus for writing the play
"I thought I'm not going to have to act at all. I have this thing. What more would they want from me, look at this. It's a spectacular getup." —Fredrick Weller on his lizard costume
"There's so little you have to do when you're working off people like that. They give you everything. They're both really fine human beings. They're just lovely people. They're at a stage in their life where they don't need to do this. They don't have to be up there doing this. They're just doing it because they love to do it, which is also a wonderful thing to be with on stage, people who just really want to be doing it. She's my idol. I don't have words to describe how I feel about Franny." —Elizabeth Marvel on George Grizzard and Frances Sternhagen
"I'm not shocked easily anymore. I've seen a lot of lizards in my day." —George Grizzard
"It's quite a play, isn't it?" —Frances Sternhagen
Interviews by Beth Stevens
Compiled by Alixandra Liner
