Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

By Arlene McKanic/Greenwich Village Gazette

During a rare, quiet moment in the revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Martha, played by Kathleen Turner, reflects on the one man in her life who's made her happy. The writer admits to holding her breath: 'Please don't let her say it was her Daddy,' I thought. But it's not. The only man who's ever made Martha happy is her dingy flop of a husband, George, a college history professor. Yes, the man she's been trying to eviscerate with such hilarious savagery all that early morning, and who is even now planning to annihilate her. Thus has always been the paradox at the heart of Albee's brilliant and exhilaratingly sick psychocomedy/drama.

As Martha laments: "George and Martha. Sad, sad, sad." For those who don't know the story, George and Martha, that fun couple, stagger home one in the wee hours from a faculty get-together presided over by Martha's father, the college founder. Martha has invited Nick, a young professor of biology, and his dipsy, "slim-hipped" child-wife Honey for a nightcap. When they arrive Martha and George proceed to rip each other, and occasionally their guests, to shreds. Nothing much else happens. The play is set on the campus of a small New England college in 1960 but there's hardly mention of the world outside the campus -- no word of the Communist threat, no joy or regret at the waning of the Eisenhower administration, no contemplation of TV shows or rock n' roll are allowed to intrude on George and Martha's private inferno. The only world event that's mentioned is -- natch -- World War II, which happened a long time ago, but whose brutal stratagems are kept alive in this blowsy termagent and her deceptively milquetoasty husband.

The writing, of course, is stellar; Albee's humor is both ghastly and screamingly funny. Turner is devastating as a woman who, after a lifetime of being ignored by her adored father, feels she can only make a statement by making a scene. Turner not only gets Martha's titanic vulgarity but the terrible vulnerability and woundedness that has made her escape, with George's help, into fantasy. For all of Martha's fearsome reputation, Bill Irwin makes us realize that George is the really dangerous one in the couple. He's rather a Gila monster -- he not only bites, but he has to gnaw on you to work the poison properly into your bloodstream. Martha, at least, can treat the ridiculous Honey with something like tenderness while George has no problem reducing both of them to quivering wrecks. David Harbour is the young professor who's both attracted and utterly repelled by the couple and their mess; his masochism is a joy to watch.

Mireille Enos is funny, moving and slappable as Honey, who spends much of her visit drunk. But a real hatred for her husband flashes out from the silliness from time to time; after Nick relieves her of her coat when they first arrive she shrinks from his touch for the rest of the morning. The play is directed with brilliance by Anthony Page, helped by John Lee Beatty's set design, a peculiarly shabby New England living room whose warm paneling, bookshelves and fieldstone should make it elegant. Maybe it's that cr ummy couch, those worn toss pillows, or the occupants that make it seem so run down?

Peter Kaczorowski's lighting design is deceptively cozy and Jane Greenwood's costumes, Martha's suit and slacks, George's drab gray professor's sweater and pants, Honey's bright little dress and Nick's tidy suit, say much about the time and place of the play. And of course, the work couldn't possibly be what it is without Rick Sordelet's fight direction. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf has lost none of its bite. Go see it! It's at the Longacre Theatre, 220 West 48th Street.