Oak Park Newspaper

★★★★
" Beaches, insanity, sunny days, great acting and
lizards from the spirit world entertain and amuse."
Highly Recommended
Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc.

Nancy, Mary Michell and Charlie, played by Jack Hickey discuss their goals and dreams.

review by Ed Vincent

Oak Park Festival Theatre has another home run for the record. Edward Albee often has visceral contentious verbal battles between heterosexual couples, and often with a strong existential element, sometimes almost radioactive, as in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Nancy and Charlie have raised a family, grown up and are now retired and there is some humor even found in how little they know about each other, how poor some of their communication has been through the years. On the beach they ponder their future.

Charlie says that he doesn't want to do anything, he wants to do nothing. Nancy claims that she loves beaches, beaches all over the world and that they should travel all over the globe and stay at beaches for a grand adventure. Charlie does not understand and finds the idea absurd.

The path of absurdity in drama has a history with many existential plays, from Waiting for Godot to this play. The real evidence soon comes to the stage as we find two human sized reptiles coming from the sea and speaking just fine English to our two human subjects.

Charlie muses about his young when he would grab large rocks and sink to the bottom of a cove and observe the fish and other underwater creatures. Nancy thinks he should do it again and help bring youth to his tired spirit.

This is an interesting play and the job done by the Oak Park Festival Theatre is delightful. We have seen Mr. Hickey and almost every role that has a story and in each he does a spectacular job. Nancy, played by Mary Michell even had me thinking about global beach travel. The two large lizards, played by
Alee Spadoni as Sarah and Dan Toot as Leslie are fantastic in their lizard roles, each with great expressions and drama.

The acting and story are funny, thoughtful and entertaining and that's what live theater should be.

Get a ticket soon and bring a friend.............

Nancy and Charlie, long married and comfortable, contemplate their partnership, the sea, and uneasy retirement. Sarah and Leslie, a devoted pair of articulate lizards just up from the depths of the ocean, struggle to master the handshake, terra firma and evolution.

Who has the harder road?

In Edward Albee’s SeaScape, two couples join on the line where their two habitats meet, and discover that, sea or sand, survival is predicated on conflict, compromise and a series of mutations.

Oak Park Festival Theatre Presents Edward Albee’s
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Satirical Comedy Seascape

OAK PARK, IL — The Oak Park Festival Theatre continues their 2012-2013 season by staging Edward Albee’s comedy/fantasy/satire, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Seascape at the Madison Street Studio Theatre. Directed by Stephanie Shaw, the production will feature Artistic Director Jack Hickey as Charlie, OPFT veteran Mary Michell as Nancy, Alee Spadoni as Sarah and Dan Toot as Leslie.

In the play, a married couple -Nancy and Charlie- visit the seashore and engage each other in an uneasy duet, dissecting the complications of retirement, rehashing their long partnership and confronting the natural beauty that surrounds them.

They are soon joined by two well-spoken, curious sea—1izards, Sarah and Leslie, who have surfaced from the depths of the ocean to master the art of the handshake, study life on terra firma and discuss their own struggle to understand evolution with their new, human friends.

Unquestionably one of the most bizarre and entertaining American plays of the last half—century, Seascape straddles the uneasy line between two habitats where two couples discover that, on land or sea, survival is predicated on conflict, compromise and a series of mutations.

Mr. Albee has long been hailed as one of the true geniuses of the American stage, having written some of the last century’s more indelible pieces of theatre including Who ’s Ajraid of Virginia Woolf, Zoo Story, Three Tall Women, The Goat (or Who is Sylvia?) and A Delicate Balance, the latter of which also garnered Mr. Albee a Pulitzer Prize. As a modern commentator on the complications of interpersonal relationships, Mr. Albee knows no peer.

This production reunites Mr. Hickey and Ms. Michel] who last appeared together on the Festival Theatre stage in Belinda Bremner’s critically-acclaimed production of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer in 2011. This production marks Stephanie Shaw’s debut as a director for Oak Park Festival Theatre. Andrew Hildner, Festival Theatre’s set designer for Beyond the Fringe and Someone Who ’ll Watch Over Me returns to create the seashore for this production and Clair Chrzan, also an OPFT veteran from Someone will supply the lighting design.

Previewing March 14-15, 2013, Seascape opens on Saturday, March 16 at the Madison Street Studio Theatre, 1010 Madison Street, Oak Park. Running through Sunday, April 21, 2013.

Performances are Thursdays—Saturdays at 8:00 pm.,
and Sundays at 3:00 p.m.

Ticket prices are $25 for adults, $20 seniors (60 and over) and $15 for students with ID. Tickets also may be purchased by calling the box office at 708-445-4440, by e-mailing Tickets@OakParkFestivalcoin, or going online to OakParkFestival.com.

Group rates are available.