At Black Box, Albee’s ’Seascape’ swims again

The No Strings Theatre Company made its debut in 2000 with a production of Edward Albee’s “Seascape,” a play dear to artistic director Ceil Herman’s heart. On the opening night of her new revival, 24 years later, Herman told the audience, “Anyone in a relationship needs to see this play.”

Albee’s middle plays regularly explore the complex dynamics of erotic entanglement, power struggles, loneliness and disappointment in marriage and aging. This is not, however, reminiscent of the verbal bloodletting in Albee’s most famous play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“Seascape,” which opened on Broadway in 1975, netted the playwright’s second Pulitzer and stands up after nearly 50 years thanks to a timeless setting, an allegorical style suggestive of a fable for adults and psychological themes that remain poignant in a time of digital media and climate change. Only the lack of a Kindle or Instagram selfie dates the scene.

Nancy and Charlie are a couple sitting on a beach as they come to grips with retirement, senior citizenship and a new chapter in their marriage and individual lives. Charlie is doing his best to sink into the warm sand on the side of a dune, his feet clad in outdoor slippers, proclaiming his desire to do nothing; Nancy is barefoot, pacing the shore as she gazes over the horizon longing to explore more, even suggesting that they become nomads roaming from one seaside to the next.

Played by Conda Douglas and Bruce Demeree, a married couple new to Las Cruces, Nancy and Charlie sort through their past and contemplate their future and feelings for each other with conflicting drives. Yet Demeree’s Charlie comes to life, springing to his feet, when he recalls his more adventurous youth, when he would sink himself and explore life underwater.

These less-experienced actors carry a first act that lives in language, stories and ideas with little physical action and passages of dense text. There is more humor to be found in Charlie’s volatility and Nancy’s dual affections and grudges. The performance could benefit from a more brisk pace and fuller exploration of the characters’ contradictions; but the performers’ personal charm and Albee’s dexterity carry us along to the entrance, at the end of the act, of a second couple who turns things upside down: A pair of human-sized sea creatures venturing onto land for the first time.

In costumes and makeup designed by Robert “Bobcat” Young and Autumn Gieb, Bob Alvarez and Gieb portray a curious, naturally guarded migrant couple who no longer feel they belong in their old habitat, pushing their way into a new environment rather than settling. In a way, they are the true protagonists in a play about the necessity of living and evolving, and it is through their strange eyes we regard Nancy and Charlie’s sometimes confused explanations of human customs and what it means to love.

Since that first production in 2000, No Strings has offered amateur theatre unafraid to tackle unconventional scripts and plays tricky to stage, with simple set designs, adaptable seating and the richness of our local talent pool. This “Seascape” manages, at least, to open one of Albee’s funnier and more optimistic, yet overlooked plays for us at a time it can be seen in a new light, its pretty scales reflecting our time’s perplexity about adaptation, migration and the fate of the human.

“Seascape” runs through Sept. 15 at the Black Box Theatre, 430 N. Main Street. Performance times include a 7 p.m. performance on Thursday, Sept. 12; 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday performances on Sept. 8 and 15. Admission prices range from $12-18. Ticketing and further information are available at 575-523-1223 or online at no-strings.org.