Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL KUCHWARA ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
``I like it all,'' she says, simply and quietly. ``I like everything about being in the theater. It all fascinates me. Even the negative parts.''
How many actresses are willing to make that statement? Not many.
But Seldes, daughter of critic and author Gilbert Seldes, is ``of the theater,'' a woman who has worked there for nearly 50 years. She made her Broadway debut in 1947 with the great Judith Anderson in a landmark production of ``Medea'' - and has been employed steadily ever since.
``I've never done a play I didn't love,'' Seldes says emphatically. ``Being in a great play is a privilege. It isn't as if it's all out there and you can just pick and choose.''
You can find her through the end of August off-Broadway, appearing in ``Three Tall Women,'' Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play that explores different stages in a woman's life.
Seldes adores long runs. She did every performance of ``Deathtrap'' on Broadway - 1,792 in all during the thriller's more than four-year New York engagement. She has been with this production of ``Three Tall Women'' since it began at the tiny off-off-Broadway Vineyard Theater in early 1994. The actress originally played the role of the drama's middle-aged female; she graduated recently to the 92-year-old matriarch of the piece.
And when the show goes on tour this fall, Seldes most likely will travel with it.
``I love to tour. I did it a lot,'' she says. ``I toured the whole country with Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell. The thing about a tour is that you are constantly up against the critics. There is a new opening night every week.
``The public is curious about `Three Tall Women' now, Maggie Smith having done it in London and it winning all those prizes,'' Seldes says. ``And it's just not like any other play. It's absolutely original.''
The role change has allowed Seldes to see ``Three Tall Women'' from two different perspectives.
``It interests me to see a play from another angle,'' she says. ``Often when I've been appearing in something, I've wondered what it would be like to play another part.''
It's something Seldes, who trained at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse, has done before. She did it in ``Equus,'' changing from the role of the magistrate to the young leading man's mother. In ``Medea,'' she started out in a nonspeaking part, played every member of the production's three-women chorus and, two decades later, was the nurse in another revival.
Directing and teaching at the Juilliard School, one of the country's top acting schools, for more than 20 years, also has given Seldes an appreciation of every actor's contribution to a production.
``When you direct, you can't think of a play in terms of one part,'' she says. ``I don't think I've ever thought of a play in terms of a single role because I've not always played the part I wished to play. When you want to be an actress, you want to play the key part - what the play is about. My career - with some beautiful exceptions - has been as a supporting actress.''
Yet Seldes looks every inch a star. Dressed in a classic black dress and pearls, she sits in an Italian restaurant across the street from Central Park. At her side is Garson Kanin, esteemed director, screenwriter, playwright (``Born Yesterday'' among others) and Seldes' husband.
Seldes moved in with Kanin after his wife, actress Ruth Gordon, died in 1985.
``When I went to stay with Garson, it never occurred to me to ask, `How long will I be with you?' It never crossed my mind. I just thought, `This is something marvelous for me and for him.' We just went from day to day. Then one day - it was five years later - he asked me to marry him.''
They are the most romantic couple in the restaurant. The 82-year-old Kanin, who had a pacemaker implant a week earlier, sits silently - for the most part. He doesn't miss a thing. Seldes is lovingly solicitous, carefully aware of every move her husband makes.
``My daughter loves Garson so much, and he has become hers as well as mine. My brother loves him. My whole family is not only so happy for me but they love him,'' she trills.
``And I love me, too,'' Kanin adds with a sly smile.
``Being with Garson has given me confidence. It has made me calm, less anxious and less nervous,'' says the lady whose outward appearance is anything but anxious. ``I think I can be confident for other people. With other people, I'm different. When people are alone, that's when they are frightened - when they must deal with themselves.''
by CNB