WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? To 14 April.

Manchester

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
by Edward Albee

Royal Exchange Theatre To 14 April 2007
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 31 March 2.30pm
BSL Signed 14 April 2.30pm
Post-show discussion 29 March
Runs 3hr 15min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk/bookonline
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 March

Nearly 2 hours to the interval but this play grips throughout.
There’s a mini-US Theatre season going on around Manchester right now: Neil Simon at the Library, Arthur Miller in Bolton, besides this revival of Edward Albee’s devastating 1962 play. It makes for intriguing contrasts.

Miller’s American Dream family split apart under the tensions of reality, while games fill-up the living-space for Albee’s Martha and George, passing time which, as a Godot characters says, “would have passed anyway,” attempting to make life bearable in a marital bear-pit. Meanwhile, Simon shows single people seeking solace as middle-age approaches in a second marriage. So, you takes your choice.

Sarah Frankcom’s revival follows fine productions by Anthony Page in London last year and Chris Honer 5 years ago at Manchester’s Library Theatre, where Ishia Bennison and George Costigan were Martha and George, slugging it out through the small hours.

Philip Bretherton’s George seems in self-control, though with his shuffle, grey suit and thatch of grey hair he appears older than Barbara Marten’s Martha. There’s no chance of a bald spot among the grey, but Martha’s statement there is one has his hand searching his head to be sure. It’s the way she tells him.

George’s confidence means the opening act’s altercation with young professor Nick loses some of its urgency; George seems relatively unconcerned about the History/Biology debate, the torn human past against the brightly-cloned future. Here, he’s far more concerned with his position and failure to live up to Martha’s demands.

Marten is some way from the overtly forceful Marthas that used to be seen: she doesn’t bray. At first she looks truly elegant; rightly for someone who has just come from a staff social gathering which her university supremo dad has hosted. Even by the end, despite the red dress hanging perpetually off one shoulder, this elegance remains, ravaged by tiredness as dawn arrives. Marten’s Martha breathes an intriguing mix of revolt and acceptance throughout.

Michael Begley’s Nick is a bland youth, Joanne Froggatt as his nervy wife sinking into drunkenness and swooning on floors progressively. Their future’s far from bright, part of this play’s remorselessness, made evident in this vivid revival.

Martha: Barbara Marten
George: Philip Bretherton
Nick: Michael Begley
Honey: Joanne Froggatt

Director: Sarah Frankcom
Designer: Hannah Clark
Lighting: Richard G Jones
Sound Steve Brown
Dialects Jan Haydn Rowles
Fights: Kate Waters
Assistant director: Chris Meads

2007-03-26 11:12:49