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PETER BROWN Return to previous page Peter Brown's Review Index
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
2 Feb 2006 George and Martha return to their comfortable and respectable, middle-class, oak panelled, campus home from a party thrown by Martha’s father, the boss of a New England college. Although it's 2 am, visitors are expected. Martha, prompted by her domineering father, has invited newly appointed lecturer Nick and his mousy wife, Honey, round for a late drink. It’s pretty soon clear that this middle-class, middle-aged duo cannot agree on anything. Martha and George argue about films, what happened at the party, the role of the new lecturer - the opening volleys in a new battle of a cruel, marital war of attrition that we begin to realise has been rumbling away for years, if not decades - a war that will reach a decisive point by the end of the play. By the time the guests arrive, George and Martha have already moved on from disagreement and are heavily into trading insults. So much so that, by the time George reluctantly opens the front door, Martha is already yelling ‘Fuck you!’ at him, to the horror of their unsuspecting visitors. However, undaunted by the presence of guests, and aided by voluminous quantities of alcohol, George and Martha continue their verbal assaults on each other. ‘You make me puke’, says Martha to George. ‘If you existed, I’d divorce you’, she adds. In retaliation, George is equally sarcastic and vitriolic – he imagines her ‘buried up to her neck in cement’ and calls her a ‘monster’. It’s breathtakingly shocking stuff, but we, the audience, find it hard not to laugh as the blistering attacks continue, increasing in their intensity, ferocity and bitterness, eventually escalating into a physical attack when George launches himself on Martha’s throat, thankfully to be saved by the athletic Nick. But the guests also come within the line of fire as the hosts play a series of ‘games’ during the course of the play. In ‘get the guests’, for example, George is brutally cruel and venomous in relating the reasons for Nick and Honey’s marriage. And Martha is equally merciless in revealing Nick’s alcohol-induced ‘floppiness’ after another game: ‘hump the hostess’. Still remarkably fresh with surprisingly modern and relevant themes, this version of Edward Albee's 1962 play has already enjoyed a run on Broadway. And if the London audience's reaction is anything to go by, it's destined for considerable success here too. And so it should, because this is a fascinating piece of psychological drama from a Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist, and on that count alone is well worth seeing. But with the advantage of an all-American cast, as well as deft and poignant direction from Anthony Page, it’s a veritable theatrical treat. Kathleen Turner truly shines as the domineering, mouthy Martha. Her presence on stage is effortlessly magnetic. In the hands of other actors, Martha might easily dominate the proceedings entirely. But rather than competing with the other characterizations, Turner works with them brilliantly, giving them room and utilising the very able support. Bill Irwin’s snake-like George is an equally forceful portrayal, though not as presumptively or obviously so. His serpent-like pointing gestures - striking and then recoiling for fear of retaliation - gradually build into the final ‘coup de grace’ at the end of the play, where George is in a sense the victor, if such a thing is possible in a relationship of this kind. I also enjoyed Mireille Enos’s performance as Honey. Drunk and in the background for most of the play, her creatively off-beat delivery seemed odd at first, but soon captivated attention particularly during a very funny dance sequence. On the technical side, John Lee Beatty's strikingly detailed set exudes homely, middle-class comfort and respectability, providing the perfect contrast for the shockingly powerful matrimonial terrorism that the play describes. With a running time one minute short of 3 hours (with 2 intervals), it’s one of the longest plays I’ve seen in some time. But this is no endurance test – it’s quite simply spell-binding theatre. Peter Brown
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