Albee Amphitheater Dedicated With George and Martha, Ruehl and Yulin
Remember George and Martha, the middle-aged, booze-swilling, expletive-slinging husband and wife in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” whose marathon battles we’ve watched with appalled fascination since the play’s 1962 premiere? Turns out, they didn’t kill each other or get divorced. Worse, they went through couples therapy, stayed married, grew old, and got meaner than ever.
The play’s author, the late Edward Albee, might have cracked a wry smile on Saturday as Mercedes Ruehl and Harris Yulin, two veteran, award-winning actors, read the opening scene from Mr. Albee’s liquor-fueled marital slugfest at the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. Ms. Ruehl, 70, and Mr. Yulin, 80, have in earlier stages of their careers inhabited the roles of Martha and George onstage, though never in the same production.
The reading was part of an hourlong tribute to rename the LongHouse’s amphitheater in memory of the playwright, who was a Montauk resident and great friend of Jack Lenor Larsen, the textile designer, art collector, and founder of LongHouse. Henceforth, the sunken, horseshoe-shaped grassy knoll, with seating and stage pit in its center, will be called the Edward Albee Amphitheater. Saturday also marked the opening of the LongHouse Reserve’s 27th season.
Art, weather, nature, and performance perfectly coalesced for the occasion. It’s that time of year when the daffodils and crocuses that cover the LongHouse’s 16-acre sculpture gardens, wooded glens, and walking paths are in glorious bloom. Even Mr. Larsen, now 91, reflected spring’s gaiety in a yellow jacket with a swatch of turquoise scarf peeking out. He spoke about Mr. Albee, referring to him as “a pillar at LongHouse” and reminded the audience that the playwright had performed often in the amphitheater. In fact, he had read the same opening scene from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with Elaine Stritch in 2001. Footage of the archived reading was being played in the LongHouse pavilion throughout the day.
Champagne was served, people milled, birds chirped, and the evening light hit the tallest of sculptures set amid the gardens just so.
“Of course the sun came out,” said Dianne Benson, the president of LongHouse’s board. “Of course it’s perfect. Because LongHouse is good to nature, nature is good to LongHouse in return.”
Ms. Ruehl took to the stage before her reading to pay tribute to Mr. Albee, whom she knew well as a friend, and who would have turned 90 in March. “He was the first person to call me after my father’s obituary appeared in The East Hampton Star,” she said.
She also shared recollections of Mr. Albee, the consummate professional, who was known to get deeply involved with productions of his plays. Besides playing Martha in 2001, Ms. Ruehl also starred in the Broadway staging of “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” in 2002 and “Occupant” in 2008.
“Anyone who knew him, would not have characterized Edward Albee as an easygoing fellow,” she said, smiling, and added that he was “allergic to small talk and mediocrity.” Tough ideas were at the core of his plays, she said, adding that he could use words like “pistol shots.”
And, indeed, the pistols were cocked and aimed once Mr. Yulin joined her onstage. Incidentally, “Romeo and Juliet” was recently restaged in England with the lovers, after somehow surviving the poison, having eloped, set up house in suburbia, and become middle-aged and tired of each other. So why not an older George and Martha, still bitterly trying to camouflage their unhappiness?
Mr. Yulin and Ms. Ruehl made a great pair of prizefighters, who are matched pound for pound, and it was pure entertainment to see them toy vindictively with each other in the newly consecrated Edward Albee Amphitheater.
With only a few benches around the stage, providing adequate seating for about 50 guests, the rest of the audience was perched on the top lip of the knoll, as the grassy sides are too steep to sit on without sliding down. Either way, it doesn’t exactly make for comfortable theater viewing. Which is altogether fitting, since neither did any of Mr. Albee’s plays.