WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? To 2 November.

Keswick

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
by Edward Albee

Theatre By The Lake (Studio) In rep to 2 November 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 26 Sept, 6,11,27 Oct 2pm
Runs 3hr 10min Two intervals

TICKETS: 07687 74411
www.theatrebythelake.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 August

Intimacy emphasises Virginia Woolf's emotional force.
Edward Albee’s play is a blistering three hour attack on domestic and social complacency. No wonder the warring couple who host events, a career-stalled History Professor and his older wife, daughter of the University boss, are namesakes for the USA’s first First Couple.

The naming implicates them both. And recent productions, including Stefan Escreet’s in Keswick, and Anthony Page’s New York/London revival with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, make clear the original perception of Martha as the play’s monster figure most likely stem from Uta Hagen’s performance in the 1962 premiere.

Here, Sandra Duncan’s Martha is the one to show vulnerability and offer possible compromises, while her moments of humour don’t have the raging-tooth’s bite of her husband’s. She’s a non-academic stuck among ambitious professors and their wives, who realises her husband’s mediocrity, and that any younger academic’s interest in her stems from her influence. Flinging herself across the sofa in the revealing dress she’s put on for the early-hours visit by young Nick and his wife, Duncan’s Martha is clear about the only thing she can do to play a role in this world.

The older couple’s life has become a series of survival games, passing the time like the word-flurries of Godot’s tramps. Escreet rightly emphasise this over Albee’s History/Biology debate, the play’s most dated aspect.

Irwin used academic formality in his movement to show George trapped in his role. Peter Macqueen uses the Keswick Studio’s intimacy to give him an understatement (W C Fields’ muttering occasionally came to mind, though it’s no direct imitation), contrasted by moments of loud rage.

Against this, the younger couple’s faultlines are suggested early, with Honey embarrassed by Nick’s putdown response when she tells him he’s being joshed. Richard Galazka’s Nick maintains his smooth surface with effort through humiliations while Lindsay Allen’s Honey skilfully differentiates various nervous states, in moments of apparent ease, drunken worry and incomprehension alike.

Drink fuels the revelations, and Sakina Karimjee’s set aptly gives the ever-replenished bar prominence, its light shining up on bottles and faces pouring them, marking-out these people’s sole illumination through their dark, scorching night.

Honey: Lindsey Allen
Martha: Sandra Duncan
Nick: Richard Galazka
George: Peter Macqueen

Director: Stefan Escreet
Designer: Sakina Karimjee
Lighting: Pete Bull
Sound: Matt Hall
Dialect coach: Charmian Hoare
Fight director: Kate Waters

2007-08-21 13:01:29