The Pittsburgh Tatler: I need to start this post by getting something out of the way. Having read Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – likely more than once in the three decades I’ve been teaching drama – and having seen some (if not all) of the 1966 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (memory’s a bit hazy on that front), I did not feel my life was missing something for never having seen a staged production.
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I’m seeing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Pittsburgh Public tonight and I’m so excited! This is one of my favorite plays. I love how Edward Albee writes dialogue (especially arguments—he’s great at subtext) and subverts American ideals like marriage and family. Virginia Woolf presents a unique challenge. As a designer, I have the luxury of being “done” with my job (in a sense) by the time the curtain rises. But I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to act through this script: with a runtime of about three hours and twenty minutes and only four actors in the cast, the burden to keep the plot moving steadily along and keep the audience engaged falls on the actors to an extent few other plays demand. Although the arguments are entertaining to watch unfold, there is the risk of them becoming repetitive or monotonous with time. As an actor, I wonder how you approach having the same fight time and time again without it becoming stale. Either way, the production at the Pittsburgh Public has been receiving rave reviews and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
I’ve never been super into Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I’ve read it and seen parts of the movie, but it never really did much for me. That said, the production at the Pittsburgh Public Theater was really freaking cool. I saw it yesterday with my roommate, and even though I don’t love the play, I was still super drawn in. The acting was surprisingly fairly solid, which I think is very wishy-washy in certain shows. The relationship between George and Martha is brutal, but the cast really nails it. Tasha Lawrence as Martha is intense and sharp, and Daniel Jenkins as George plays his character with this calm but dangerous vibe. The whole cast brings a lot of depth to their roles. I still don’t think I’ll ever be a big fan of the play itself, but I get why people are into it. It’s messy, intense, and impossible to ignore.
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