By BOB HOOVER
It’s the third time around for Edward Albee‘s 63-year-old masterwork, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Previously produced here in 1999 and 1983, the Public blows the dust off the once-sensationalist play as part of its 50th season. Pamela Berlin directs in this her 12th directing assignment with the Public.
Woolf is a knockdown, drag-out fight between two couples, the middle-aged George and Martha and the 20-somethings Nick and Honey, as the four guzzle down several gallons of booze at George and Martha’s house on a small New England college campus.
The characters are tasty fodder for actors. Martha, the gin-soaked “harridan,” is played by Broadway veteran Tasha Lawrence with more than enough vulgarity and sloppy sexual suggestions.
and Tasha Lawrence. (Image: Maranie R. Staab)
Another Broadway vet, Daniel Jenkins, gives the failed academic George a permanent slump of resignation, coupled with an acerbic cynicism.
University of Pittsburgh graduates Dylan Marquis Meyers as Nick and Claire Sabatine as Honey, newcomers to the school, bring humor and pathos to their roles as they try to survive the merciless criticism of George and the smarmy innuendo of Martha.
The set of the home is too nicely decorated and too large for a college house. When Martha exclaims over and over, “What a dump,” it’s not; it seems set designer Jason Simms needed to fill the O’Reilly’s huge stage with its high ceiling when the play calls for a cramped space too small for its characters. Albee’s words fly up to that ceiling, often getting lost in its height.
What’s to know about the current version?
It’s still about 3½ hours long. As the third act began somewhere around 10:30 p.m. on opening night, there were plenty of empty seats. I wondered why the Public didn’t start the show at 7:30.
The play’s now-quaint euphemisms, shocking for the 1960s, probably puzzle younger audiences who have heard far worse on their streaming shows.
I first saw the play in 1966 when a road company staged it at my college. Several young women left midway, appalled by the language that made Woolf such a hit on Broadway that it ran for nearly 700 performances.
Some people actually were afraid of the English Virginia Woolf in the early 20th century when her “Bloomsbury set” ridiculed the uneducated hoi polloi.
Albee must have read her renowned novels such as “Mrs. Dalloway” and “To The Lighthouse,” which portrayed strained marriages much like George and Martha’s.
Virginia and her husband, Leonard Woolf, had a physically barren marriage, since both were gay. Their “child” was an ugly marmoset named Witz. The son in the play is also a missing piece, so I’ll leave the rest out for those who haven’t seen the show.
(Image: Maranie R. Staab)
Albee was so worried about using the novelist’s name that he sought permission from Leonard Woolf, who replied that he wouldn’t mind. And the tune “Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf” was copyrighted, so Albee used the song “Let’s Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush.”
Enough of trivia. What is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf really about? Albee flatly states it: “Truth or illusion.”
Some critics cynically say the play is about marriage in America, with its shaky beginnings and enduring unhappiness at a time when divorce was difficult.
Did Martha marry the younger history professor to please her father, the president of the college, in hopes George would succeed him?
Nick and Honey knew each other as children when they “played doctor” (another tired euphemism), then married when Honey “blew up” with a false pregnancy, then “went down.” Plus, she’s rich.
In either case, love was not the cause.
George first attacks Nick, a biologist, for plans to fiddle with chromosomes so babies are born in test tubes, making everybody look like Nick, an All-American athlete, then bores in on Nick’s plans to take over the college. Nick isn’t what he pretends to be.
Demure Honey turns out to be a drunk who can’t hold her brandy.
What about “Sunny Jim,” “the little bugger,” who’s coming home to celebrate his 21st birthday? Did Martha abuse him, or did George ignore him? Does the boy go away for the summer to escape his parents, and what color are his eyes anyway?
And who is the teenage boy who pronounces bourbon “bergin,” who has killed his parents, and spends his days in an insane asylum? Does he only exist in George’s failed novel, or could he be George?
Albee’s world is a distorted view of reality with its unrealistic characters imbued with deep psychological insights, eloquent language, and a limitless capacity for alcohol. They’re also hilarious.
Illusion must be killed if truth can become the inevitable reality. It’s a heartless view of life that reveals the love and compassion buried in George and Martha’s relationship can only emerge when the lies are destroyed. Only George is brave enough to do that.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? is at the O’Reilly Theater through April 6, 2025. Tickets: Visit https://www.ppt.org/production/94415/whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf or call 412-316-1600.
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Reviews
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