Even at 80, Albee won't play it safe

'Seascape' staging prompts reminiscing

''I like the three-act version. I like the ending because it's tougher,'' Edward Albee says of his play ''Seascape.'' (Jerry speier)

Edward Albee spoke this week from Montauk, N.Y., where he lives when he's not in New York City, about Zeitgeist Stage Company's production of "Seascape," which opens today at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Zeitgeist's staging, directed by David J. Miller, is the first in the United States to use the original, three-act script, rather than the two-act version that won a Pulitzer Prize when it debuted on Broadway in 1975. In both versions, "Seascape" features a long-married couple, Nancy and Charlie, and the startling couple they meet one day on the beach: Sarah and Leslie, who are giant lizards.

The original second act takes place on the ocean floor, from which the lizards have crawled up onto dry land. The more familiar version, though set entirely on the beach, preserves most of the original's commentary on evolution, existence, and consciousness, both human and reptilian.

Albee has said that the underwater scene was cut for practical reasons - "It was turning into a play about set changes," he told The New York Times's Mel Gussow in 1975 - but I'm curious to know what he thought of the change at the time, and how he feels now about the plan to stage the play uncut. I'm also curious about the ending, which in the revision takes a slightly less bleak turn than the original.

Albee, who is 80, is relaxed and dryly charming on the phone. We chat for a minute about weather and dogs - he once had five Irish wolfhounds, but as they died he did not replace them. "I became so peripatetic that it was just too difficult. You can't get five Irish wolfhounds into a station wagon."

The dog talk, as always with dog people, could go on indefinitely, but eventually I mention that I called to talk about lizards.

"Well, that's fine," Albee says. "Anything except humans."

Q. I'd like to start by talking about the circumstances that led you to cut the underwater act in the first place.

A. Well - this all happened because once when I was up in Boston, doing a gig, they said, "Do you want to stay in a hotel, or do you want to stay in a bed-and-breakfast?" I said, "I've never stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in Boston. I'd like to stay in a bed-and-breakfast." And it turns out the bed-and-breakfast is run by the guys [Miller and his partner, Reinhold Mahler] who are doing the play. And so when they called me and said, "Can we do the play? We hear there's a three-act version - can we take a look at it?" I said sure.

I hadn't looked at it in a long, long time; I was so busy turning it into a two-act play. I went back and read it, and I said, "You know, I like this." I may even prefer the ending. You know: The lizards have gone back down, the humans have [messed] up evolution once again.

So I didn't do much to it. I had to take one five-minute section out - when the female human talks about her mother committing suicide - because I had put that into another play. And I wanted to know if they could handle the underwater setting; it will be done with lighting. I was told on Broadway that it would be so expensive to do that set that it would be impossible to produce the play.

Q. So the decision to cut it before the Broadway opening was for practical, financial reasons?

A. I don't remember now what made me change it. We cut the underwater scene, but I don't know why I changed the ending. I like the three-act version. I like the ending because it's tougher. There have been several productions of the two-act version that have been too soft. They don't seem to understand that the lizards are constantly threatening and dangerous. They become kind of pets, and that destroys the play.

Of course, I have no idea what this production will be like. I haven't had a chance to get up and see it, nor do I want to. I'll go up to see it after it opens, I hope to, but I don't know what they're doing.

Q. Why do you think people choose to see these frightening creatures as fuzzy, friendly dinosaurs?

A. I don't know. Because it's safer and easier.

Q. Is that something you run into fairly often?

A. I'm afraid I do. It reminds me of the situation of the finest American play ever written, which is "Our Town." It gets turned into a Christmas card. But what Wilder wrote was one of the toughest existential dramas ever written. I can't see it without crying, and I'm not sentimental.

Q. Did you see the recent ["Seascape" revival] in New York?

A. I was unhappy with it, because the same thing happened, because the director wouldn't listen to me. Well, stuff like that happens.

Q. >Still, it must be annoying.

A. The report that I had softened in some way annoyed me a little bit.

Q. So you haven't softened?

A. I don't think so.

Q. And are you planning to soften up anytime soon?

A. Well, let's see. Wait till after I'm 90, and we'll talk about it.

Louise Kennedy, who edited and condensed this interview, can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.