He Said, She Said: Saint, Hayden revise ‘Love Letters’

Friday, Sept. 6, 2002 | 9:36 a.m.

What: "Love Letters."

When: 8 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 S. Brush St.

Tickets: $20 at the door; $15 in advance.

Information: (702) 229-6383.

"Love Letters" is the most basic of productions: An actor and actress on a Spartan stage read letters their characters have exchanged over 50 years.

It is a popular vehicle for show-business couples among the many who have performed the play are Robert Wagner and Jill St. John, and Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter.

Academy Award-winning actress Eva Marie Saint ("On the Waterfront") and her producer/director husband, Jeffrey Hayden, have been performing in the play intermittently for the past five years. They will bring their version of A.R. Gurney's 1989 production to Charleston Heights Arts Center on Saturday.

"Gurney is adamant about how it is to be staged," Saint said during a telephone interview from the couple's home in Santa Monica, Calif. "It must be staged exactly the way he says. If you deviate at all, you can get into trouble."

Saint said Gurney was bothered when one couple improvised some stage business looking out a window and other action uncalled for in the original script.

"He was very upset," she said.

Although Saint and Hayden have been performing the play for five years, Saint says they never stop working on their delivery.

"We start rehearsing weeks before," she said. "It is very difficult when you are reading the parts. You can't use any body language, you just sit there and read.

"People get quite caught up in the relationship of the actors."

The power of the play is in the words in the letters, and Gurney doesn't want anything to detract from that.

"Many actors have done the play," Saint, 78, said. "But you must be of a certain age, you must have lived a certain amount of years to be where they (the characters) are. If you are too young, it is not that believable that you can have gone through that. It takes time to grow.

"I love doing the play with Jeff."

A long run

Saint and Hayden have been married 51 years. They met at the Actor's Studio in New York City, where he was a director and she was studying acting.

Both have had distinguished careers on stage, screen and television.

Besides "On the Waterfront" (1954), Saint has appeared in such films as "Raintree County" (1957), "North by Northwest" (1959), "Exodus" (1960), and "The Sandpiper" (1965).

She started out to be a teacher, but changed her major to theater in her second year at Bowling Green University in Ohio.

"Someone dared me to try out for a play," Saint said. "I got the part, and there was something about being with other potential actors and being backstage that I loved. I adored all my friends in education, but I changed my major."

Her first film was "Waterfront," directed by Elia Kazan.

"I learned a lot from him on the set," Saint said. "Kazan taught me to keep in character, not to be distracted, even between scenes."

Hayden, who has mixed a career as a director of stage, screen and television, was one of the most sought-after directors during the Golden Age of television. His credits include "Leave it to Beaver," "77 Sunset Strip" and "The Andy Griffith Show."

"The writers were good," Hayden said. "In those days they took time to develop material. The Golden Age had wonderful writers."

Hayden said while there are a number of excellent television series today ("Frasier" among them), there are too many that emphasize sex and violence.

"It's not the same as it was many years ago," he said. "Back then stories dealt with problems with the family -- real and interesting problems."

The play's the thing

The emotions of "Love Letters" was what attracted Saint and Hayden to the play.

The story revolves around the characters of Andrew Ladd III and Melissa Gardner, who are from vastly different backgrounds. They begin corresponding as a writing exercise, and soon become each other's confidant and counselor.

The letters they share are sometimes very general, just keeping each other up-to-date. At other times, the letters convey their most intimate thoughts, experiences and details of their lives.

"It's such a love story," Saint said. "I love my character, a very rich girl from a family that has been highly dysfunctional. It makes for a complex character, one who is very honest, very direct -- which is why Andy is attracted to her. He charms her with his earnestness and she captivates him with her vivaciousness.

"They are quite different, but sometimes opposites attract."

While the character of Andrew becomes a wealthy businessman and politician, the character of Melissa is always trying to find a niche -- she is a Bohemian, an artist who travels and doesn't quite find her place in life.

"It's sad what happens to Melissa," Saint said.

"The work is very moving," Hayden said. "It is one of the finest plays, a wonderful, wonderful picture of life in our generation. We know these people, we have lived with these people. Parts of us are these people.

"It's kind of a great joy that we have in performing in the play, because the audiences are so responsive to it. There is very funny material here, yet at the end it's so sad people are weeping."

The couple have worked together on many projects, but usually he was the director. Their collaborative efforts onstage have included "The Rainmaker," "Summer and Smoke" and "Desire Under the Elms."

"We have always enjoyed working together and to be together on the road, as director and actress," Saint said.

Hayden refuses to admit he is an actor, which is probably best since Saint said she would never have married an actor.

"They're too neurotic," she said.

Both lead active, professional lives.

"I'm still very much in the ballgame," Hayden said.

He says he is working on a couple of projects for television and is developing a movie script focusing on problems facing three generations of women.

"It's the kind of thing I'm interested in," Hayden said.

Saint says she continues to look for interesting projects. In 1990 she won an Emmy for Best Actress in the NBC miniseries, "People Like Us."

"You get to a certain age and there are not that many opportunities," she said. "The older actresses in Europe have a ball. Audiences think they are the cat's meow. But in this country, the emphasis is on youth. But I don't get discouraged. I keep at it."