Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ by Edward Albee is the latest presentation from Black Swan Theatre at The Playhouse, 3 Pier Street, Perth until 1^st June. Performances start at 7.30 every night, with one or two exceptions.

It is 2.00 am. and a couple is returning home from a dinner.  As history professor, George (Greg Stone) gets ready for bed, his ‘liquor-ridden, foul-mouthed’ wife, Martha (Tamara Cook) announces that her demonic father is sending a young couple around, any second, to meet them. George is not happy, but after 23 years of taunting and degradation from Martha, there is little he can do.

Later, when one of the visitors, biology lecturer Nick (Stuart Halusz) and George are alone, Nick reveals that his naïve, delicate wife Honey (Renee McIntosh) has had a hysterical pregnancy. In return, George confides some of his life’s happenings.

The women return to the sitting room and Martha commences to play weird party games, in which one or two of those present pick on the others.

Throughout all of the vicious, derogatory stories and inferences, the audience is left to sort out the wheat from the chaff. What are the lies and what is actually true? Why do George and Martha verbally abuse each other?

In the final Act, George gets years of pent up anger off his chest, but will the marriage survive?

There are certain plays that have had a very high bar set by their film versions. The 1966 film of ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ had 13 Oscar nominations and won five, so director Marcelle Schmitz was on an uphill battle. A battle, which she won hands down. The film presented the couple simply as a nasty, bitchy couple; here however, Marcelle has seen through the marital warfare and drawn out the immense amount of humour. She has also given us a clear insight of the cruelly disturbed and pathetic minds of George and Martha.

The acting by all four actors was perfect. Not only faced with a massive script, dozens of mood swings and character changes, the actors’ dialogue demanded well-matched American accents. Tamara (who, I am sorry to say, was a little disappointing in ‘Shakespeare in the Park’) with Marcelle's accurate and demanding direction gave a truly brilliant and sensitive performance. Likewise, Greg’s George blew me away – he was supreme.

I expected the home to be a dingy flat, but instead Bryan Woltjen has produced an inventive, split-level room. Whilst being a large set, allowing for all of the interesting movement, it had multiple bookshelves which acted like a set of ribs drawing the whole room together. Andrew Lake’s lighting was soft with subtle changes. When delicate points were raised in the conversation, a low hertz rumble (sound by Kingsley Reeve) gave depth to the situation.

With three, one-hour Acts, the whole show ran for 3 ½ hours, it was a draining play to watch, but totally riveting and so satisfying with its look at life, stripped bare. A truly remarkable production.