Seascape by Edward Albee. Directed by Linda Joseph
Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman
Not really a review, but a note on a company that you should know about. Linda Joseph's Workshop Playhouse Productions is in the midst of a three weekend series of staged readings of Pulitzer Prize winning plays. For this one, a difficult 1970's melodrama/comedy about humanity, the human race and the primordial ooze, Josephs has cast a company of professionals (not credited as such) including Gary Cookson, Tyler Malik, Mark Hohlstein and Gail Ryan. She has created a modest set, costumes and makeup of sorts and both speech patterns and movement that help to define her four characters.
Ryan is brilliant as Nancy, the aging wife who desires more than life is offering her. Cookson as her husband is blithely bored. Malik as Sarah, the lizard woman, is fascinating to watch and listen to as her innate humanity emerges and Hohlstein as her mate, Leslie, is endlessly frustrating and fabulous.
The company works with scripts in hand and still manage to make us believe that this is a production and not a reading. Kudos to all involved. There is a performance today at 2pm.
Next week a new company brings a reading version of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt," a play that is not unfamiliar to Berkshire audiences - Town Players performed it last year - about the nature of suspicion and jealousy.
All of this is happening at New Stage Performing Arts Center, above the Beacon Theater on North Street in Pittsfield.
For more information, call 413-418-0999.
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