Far too often modern theater focuses on the spectacle — the lights, set, sound effects and other budget breaking elements of razzle-dazzle — in an attempt to woo an audience.
But when all of the set changes, and the flashing lights and ornate costumes are gone, only true talent can really move an audience. One of the greatest challenges a show faces is how to move an audience with the sheer talent of the actors and directors. When this succeeds the payoff and power of the show is always far greater.
Arena Stage’s fearless production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” proves that raw talent alone trumps bells and whistles. Superb directing, plus four outstanding actors, and one of the wittiest, razor sharp scripts in the last century amount to three and a half hours of hilarious, horrifying and heart wrenching theater.
The play, written by American playwright Edward Albee in 1962, exists in a world steeped in academia.?It begins at 2 a.m. in the home of the dysfunctional middle aged couple George and Martha, who are deeply entrenched in years of venomous verbal games and attempts to humiliate one another. This pair is soon joined by a younger couple, Nick and Honey, and the four characters embark on a drunken night of mind games, wit, lust and cruelty as the realities they reveal become increasingly warped.
Arena Stage’s production, impeccably directed by Pam McKinnon, stars acting veterans Amy Morton and Tracy Letts as the iconic Martha and George. Both are nothing short of mesmerizing. Letts owns the sharp words of George and earns the majority of the laughs, and Morton embodies Martha in a performance that’s simultaneously raw, sloppy and perfect.?The pair fascinated the audience as they explored the darkest corners of Albee’s characters.?Honey, played by Carrie Coons, and Nick, played by Madison Dirks, hold themselves well as they share the stage with the two Tony Award winners.
The show is undoubtedly long, however it flies by and simultaneously kept the audiences laughing, horrified, and stunned.?Not one minute passes in which the audience is not transfixed by the searing energy, vitality and pulsing production. And at each intermission one could hear sighs of frustration, as the audience was unwilling to depart from the shows’ momentum for the 15-minute breaks.
Perhaps the two greatest successes, of which there were many, is the disturbing amount of comedy the play generates at the expense of the four characters, and the humanity that the two senior actors find within the cruelty of the play.?But the audience is laughing at the all too realistic debasing of human beings getting pushed to their limits.
More than a couple of times, the audience would cackle at a stinging insult to George’s masculinity then catch themselves realizing their own capacity for cruelty. But despite the disturbing nature of these wretched characters, they are played with compassion, and the audience falls in love, or maybe in pity, with the leads, who perpetuate their own hell.
If you see any show this spring, make it “Virginia Woolf,” a ferocious show that gets everything right. No fog machines necessary.
mwolfson@theeagleonline.com
