What are the factors that allow a relationship to last 52 years? If you’re veteran actor and entrepreneur Alan Ceppos, it boils down to three things:
- Never criticize your partner’s family.
- Always find the budget to have a maid.
- Always have a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator.
Ceppos is only partially kidding. He met his husband Frédéric when he was 23 and teaching English in France — on his first day in the job, he says. They’ve been together ever since.
That experience, in part, informs his approach to his role in the new play “Art of Leaving,” running at Signature Center through Dec. 14. The play concerns three couples in three generations at crossroads, trying to determine when to stay together, or when to artfully leave.
The play by Anne Marilyn Lucas was inspired by her own story, and for all the serious subject matter, is a comedy. The couples — one in their 20s, one in their 50’s, and one in their 70s — have very different ideas of what a marriage should be, and those different perspectives have the power to shake assumptions and ideas, both old and new. Topics such as fidelity and polyamory, and the different responses to them, drive the action…and the conflict.
Ceppos plays the husband in the older couple, and of his character says his perspective is “kind of a been there/done that.”
“There are so many things we’ve seen and been concerned about in our lives that get resolved when we get older,” Ceppos says. He adds that one of his lines is “there weren’t so many flavors when I was young,” and that the younger generation is developing new ways of thinking about this, including gender fluidity.
“This is the evolution of the world,” he says.
How the characters respond to that evolution, however, is what creates the conflict in the piece — as it does in real life. When that conflict gets to be too onerous, Ceppos says, the questions become: At what point do you leave? How do you leave, and what is the art of leaving? Or, do you adapt and grow? While the play concerns heterosexual couples, these questions are relevant — and essential — to any couple seeking a long-term relationship. How does one stay true to oneself in the context of a relationship and face the internal and external changes that inevitably come with time?
Ceppos has certainly seen change in his own life. As a proud, fifth generation New Yorker, he says, that’s important to him.
“There’s not a street I walk down that doesn’t evoke a cellular memory,” Ceppos says. “New York is in my soul.”
As an actor, Ceppos first appeared on Broadway at the age of 9 in “The Three Musketeers.” His first national television role came four years later in “The Lottery.” Since then, he’s appeared regularly on television, most recently in the Amazon Prime series “Gravesend” and the film “That Cold Dead Look in Your Eyes,” for which he won seven best actor awards.
Beyond theater and film, Ceppos is a successful entrepreneur. After 10 years in France, he and Frédéric decided they should come to New York, and they opened a distribution company in the garment industry. Later, they would become co-founders and owners of The Hamptons Honey Company, and PIQ, a specialty retail store specializing in gifts. Ceppos is also the co-inventor with Frédéric of the Zen Garden and world distributor of the Stellarscope, which helps users identify the constellations and more than 1,500 stars. The product has been made for more than 40 years.
So far, Ceppos’ life has been rich, full, constantly evolving, and the adventure continues. He certainly is still fully engaged in his life and work. As he says, “my mother used to say, ‘aging isn’t pretty,’ and it gets on my nerves to hear that.”
Ultimately, the “art,” if one can call it that, is about staying engaged in life and managing the changes, no matter where we are in the process.
The Art of Leaving | Pershing Square Signature Center | 480 West 42nd Street | Tues-Sat 7 p.m.; Sat, Sun 2 p.m. | $49-$129 at OvationTix.com
