Golden Years

Tom Aldredge and Elizabeth Wilson star in ‘Double Play,’ an evening of mature theater at George Street Playhouse.

By: Matt Smith

"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Wilson won a Tony Award for David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones.


   As actors of a certain age, Elizabeth Wilson and Tom Aldredge are accustomed to parts that call for a few wrinkles, and maybe a liver spot or two.
   "I just did a film in which I played a 100-year-old lawyer," says the 74-year-old Mr. Aldredge, whose Internet Movie Database filmography lists roles such as "Old Man," "Spry Old Man" and "Grizzled Old Man."
   "In the parts that I’m given now," adds the 81-year-old Ms. Wilson, "I’m either paralyzed or, let’s see, the last one I did, on ‘Law & Order,’ I was this old, rich crook."
   The two were cast opposite each other in a forgettable 1994 TV movie, In the Best of Families: Marriage, Pride & Madness. Kelly McGillis stars as a demented divorcee who marries her cousin, played by Harry Hamlin.
   "Was it about incest?" Ms. Wilson asks.
   "I was a doctor, you were my wife," Mr. Aldredge assures her. "I fell down the stairs."
   "Yeah, he dies on the stairs," Ms. Wilson adds. "He has a heart attack… But what about the incest?"
   "My son was a gun freak, and they were blowing something up," jokes Mr. Aldredge, known to TV fans for his recurring role as Tony Soprano’s father-in-law on HBO’s acclaimed drama The Sopranos.
   The two veteran actors — who met on Broadway in David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones in 1972 — agree that great parts for older folks are few and far between, both on screen and on the stage.
   "It’s the old gag about the four stages of an actor’s life," Mr. Aldredge says. "The first stage is ‘Who’s Tom Aldredge?’ The second stage is ‘Get me Tom Aldredge.’ The third stage is ‘Get me a Tom Aldredge type.’ The fourth stage is ‘Who’s Tom Aldredge?’"
   "There is nobody my age on television, no parts in plays for a person over 60," says Ms. Wilson, who won a Tony Award for Sticks and Bones. "Nobody’s interested in older people."
   It is even more rare when a major regional theater stages an evening that explores growing old with respect, humor, tenderness and depth. George Street Playhouse is doing just that with Double Play, a pairing of Israel Horovitz’s The 75th with The Vibrator, a brand-new work by octogenarian Arthur Laurents. Ms. Wilson and Mr. Aldredge star in both pieces, which run Jan. 14-Feb. 9 in New Brunswick.
   In a rehearsal-room conversation at George Street on a rainy Friday morning, Ms. Wilson and Mr. Aldredge recall their first encounter with The 75th, at the New York Shakespeare Festival with Joseph Papp in 1978. The comedy, about the only two surviving members of a high-school class at their 75th reunion, didn’t make it beyond the workshopping stage.
   "It never opened," Ms. Wilson says. "It was done as a workshop, but they never put it together with another play. It had a great following — people who saw it still talk about it."
   "We had to do a lot of make-up," Mr. Aldredge says. "We don’t have to do much anymore."
   "We loved the play so much, and we asked Israel to write another play, but it didn’t work," adds Ms. Wilson. "Now (George Street Playhouse Artistic Director) David Saint is an old friend of mine, and I kept saying ‘I’d love to do The 75th.’ He spoke to Arthur Laurents, and Arthur wrote the unmentionable second act (‘The Vibrator’)."
   "It’s not as bad as the title," says Mr. Aldredge of The Vibrator. "It’s a sweet, sad, serious piece about people who love each other, who are still together."
   Funny title (and battery-powered prop) aside, Mr. Laurents’ play presents a frank, true-to-life discussion about older people and sex, a rarity in today’s youth-obsessed culture.

"Tom
Tom Aldredge is known to TV fans for his recurring role as Tony Soprano’s father-in-law on HBO’s drama The Sopranos.


   "People are afraid to talk of that subject," Mr. Aldredge says, "because people are in their later years, it becomes unmentionable for them, but it is not."
   "And it seems so rare these days for people to have been together for almost 50 years and still really care what happens to the other person," Ms. Wilson adds. "I think that’s one of the things that’s so touching about it.
   "They still are nuts about each other, they still are turned on about each other," she says, trailing off into a positively girlish laugh.
   Mr. Aldredge has been married "going on 50 years." His wife, Tony-winner Theoni Aldredge, is costume designer for Double Play. Ms. Wilson chose not to walk down the aisle.
   "I never married, and I’m not unhappy about that…now," she says.
   "But a lot of guys are," Mr. Aldredge notes.
   Writing with Ms. Wilson and Mr. Aldredge in mind, Mr. Laurents was able to use his actors’ lives as inspiration for The Vibrator.
   "Of course I’m not gonna say what," Mr. Aldredge says. "There are elements in the play he took from my marriage, he took from Elizabeth, because he knew us. Once again, I won’t tell you what those are."
   Although Ms. Wilson and Mr. Aldredge banter back and forth like they were a married couple, and consider each other friends, the two actors rarely see each other.
   "That’s the great thing about the theater," Mr. Aldredge says. "You might not see an actor you’ve worked with for 20 years, but as soon as you see them again, the 20 years disappear."
   The years seem to disappear when the two actors fondly recall their beginnings in the theater. Mr. Aldredge, a Dayton, Ohio, native, was studying pre-law at the University of Dayton when a sightseeing trip to New York City with a friend — and a chance meeting — changed his life.
   "We walked backstage at the Barrymore Theater," Mr. Aldredge remembers, "and there were two stagehands at the stage door, and I said ‘Can we go in and look at the stage?’ They said ‘No.’ I said ‘Why? We just want to look at what the theater looks like.’
   "They said ‘There’s a production here this afternoon. Why don’t you buy a ticket?’ I said ‘How much does it cost?’ They said ‘a dollar eighty.’" So we went in and we saw ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ And those two stagehands came on stage — it was (Marlon) Brando and Karl Malden — and I was stunned. It was a revelation."
   Ms. Wilson, on the other hand, always dreamed of becoming an actress growing up in Grand Rapids, Mich.
   "I knew I had to become an actress," she says. "It’s the only thing I wanted, it’s the only high I got, and it became almost like a religion. I think part of it had to do with my mother’s confidence and support, and I wanted to please her so much.
   "She came to New York a few times to see me, but she never praised me. She was happy but she wasn’t the sort of person to say you were good. To this day, I get nervous when my family’s out front, because they know you so well."
   An actor with six decades of experience still gets nervous?
   "Oh, please," she says. "Are you kidding? It only gets worse, because you know more. God, I’m shaking all the time.
   "Mary, my sister, she just knows automatically. She says, ‘Lizzy, when I come back stage I’m just gonna say you were good. Is that OK?’"
   Adds Mr. Aldredge, who has 50-plus years of acting experience himself: "It wouldn’t be worth doing if you still didn’t get nervous."
Double Play: The 75th and The Vibrator runs at the George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, Jan. 14-Feb. 9. Performances: Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m.; Jan. 18, 23, Feb. 1, 8, 2 p.m. Tickets cost $26-$50. For information, call (732) 246-7717. On the Web: www.georgestplayhouse.org