The trick of theatrical acting is to play the same thing every night as if it were happening for the first time, right there in front of the audience’s eyes. But the controversial American classic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” calls for something different. Edward Albee wrote a play in which we observe a cruel and competitive game of escalating insults between off-duty history professor George and Martha, a wife who makes a sinister sport out of her disappointment. In the horrific “groundhog” nightmare of their marriage, the trick is to distinguish between those moves that tear up routine – which is exactly how director Gordon Greenberg deals with the tumultuous Battle Royale in the Geffen Playhouse’s 60th anniversary production featuring Zachary Quinto and Calista Flockhart.
A play of this magnitude calls for two giants in the lead roles, not two of yesterday’s TV news stars. Who didn’t love Flockhart in “Ally McBeal” back in the day, or Quinto in “Heroes”? But are they really up to the task? One can easily be excused for lowering one’s expectations of the possibility of these two trying to fill the shoes of Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin. It was a 2020 Broadway production that featured Robert Everett and Laurie Metcalfe in previews when the pandemic hit, but Geffen likes to give theses small screen shots at Serious Theatah.
At first, it doesn’t seem like this latest pairing might yield any new discoveries for such a familiar play, only to be surprised when the duo gives their own show on their opening rounds – sparring or drinking, but you keep counting. Although described in dialogue as weighing 108 pounds, Martha is almost always played by a larger, more physically dominant artist, “Manter.” Flockhart is not of the same physical type at all, even if there is absolutely no doubt when on stage that Flockhart could devour any of her co-stars. Brittle yet sturdy in titanium, with a rugged Aquanet, late in her career – Marilyn’ and impossible-to-identify reinforcements on her face, Martha reads as a woman who still desires to be desired, adding another dimension to animating.
This passionate three-hour marathon takes place in the early hours of Saturday night through Sunday morning, after another faculty party for Martha’s father and president. (The title, sung to the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” is a nod to playing on words heard earlier that night.) It’s been 23 years since George and Martha have been married, and the passion has long since cooled into disdain. At her father’s suggestion, Martha invites a younger couple, Professor of Fresh Meat Biology on Campus Nick (Graham Phillips) and his lightweight wife Honey (Amy Carrero), who will serve as a new audience and an instrument of jealousy, while the four of them hit enough liquor. To calm the T. rex.
A bad melee escalates into a brutal fight as evening falls. George and Martha have been into it even before they even went up on stage, but the “braying” that George is accusing her of isn’t exactly a scrape from Flockhart. It’s all too easy to turn Martha into a villain (she swallows her husband in the middle of the play), but there’s more to her here. For comparison, I traced a vinyl recording of the 1963 Broadway movie, in which Hagen swings the battle character with all her might. It’s amazing to play explosively, but also watch Martha from Flockhart – the daughter and wife of an academic, stuck in an Ivy League prison with no outlet for her wits – alternating between passive-aggressive attack style and claw attack style.
The mystery of this play has always been what this couple saw in each other, particularly with a frail George as Quinto embodies (at times, he comes across as the confused and comforted Alan Rickman from tweed). The world is full of couples who thrive on conflict – just watch the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial of such a case. But in inventing this pair, Albee ensured audiences leave the stage with the assurance that (a) George and Martha are in love and (b) your relationship doesn’t look half bad by comparison, however imperfect it may be.
If George and Martha practiced the same form of mutual flogging every night, it would be an inspiring choice to play the script in such a competitive spirit, considering Martha’s unguarded acknowledgment that her husband is the only man “who can continue to learn the games we play. As quickly as I can change them.” An early clue comes just before Nick and Honey arrive, when George throws a bald joke that stops Martha in her tracks. They laughed, and she raised her glass—toast to fresh toast, as if this was a tennis match and George had just scored a point.
She calls it ‘swampy’ – a creation of her own – while the guests grumble in annoyance. It’s an ugly sport, and with bottle smashing and unwritten rules betrayed, there’s a terrifying feeling that things can get ugly, and that irreparable damage can be done. The victim was not their marriage so much as the one thing that held them together: their imaginary son, whom Martha, like their unreserved quarrel, dared to reveal. George and Martha might expose each other to a version of this abuse every weekend, but there’s something different about the night in question. As played, the game now passes on to us, as it is our duty to identify (and appreciate) the small and significant ways in which a married couple manages to surprise each other.
[ad_2]
