A middle-aged couple relax on the beach remembering times past and thinking about their future. They meet some strangers who are quite surprising. It's not your usual vacation encounter. So begins Seascape, an award winning play by Edward Albee who is perhaps best known for his Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Director Scott Harris has been dreaming about producing this play since he was 15 years old and came across the script while acting in summer stock in the U.S. Now in his 40s, Harris says that he's finally got the chance to revisit favourite plays and do things he never got to do before. Written in 1975, Seascape had a brief Broadway run, earning Albee his second Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Harris describes the play as amusing and wistful. Seascape opens at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Feb. 6 for six performances. It will have an original staging treatment, Harris explains, including a beach on stage with waves and some elements of the sea, in contrast to his usual spare sets. He knows exactly how it will look because he's been painting the scenery himself. He also directs and acts one role. The other parts are claimed by Marilyn Browning, Nils Von Hahn and Denise O'Brian. Harris and O'Brian were a great team in last summer's acclaimed production of Dear Liar based on the letters of George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Seascape runs Feb. 6 and 7, then again Feb. 20, 21, 27 and 28 at 8 p.m. at the Heritage Playhouse. Tickets are $12, available at Coast Books and Talewind Books.
