Words by Emma Clegg
At Ustinov theatre until 11 February
Edward Albee (1928–2016) described his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as a ‘grotesque comedy’, also citing the influence of Sophocles and Noël Coward. This long, three-act play is indisputably an acidic fusion of doom-laden farce and emotional tragedy. And it’s only just shy of being as discordant and rattling as at its first performance in 1962. ‘Only just’ because this aggressive depiction of a charged, warring, alcohol-soaked couple was launched in an era when the aspirational family was happily married with two children. Its often colourful language – including “screw”, “angel tits” and “hump the hostess” – punctures the same dream.
The action is set in the living room of two middle-aged academics, George and Martha. It is 2.30am when they return from a campus party, full of alcohol and ready for a fight. Defying the conventional route of going to bed and waking up with a hangover, Martha has invited a younger couple, Nick a biology professor and his wife Honey, back for a drink. At first bemused and ill at ease with the vicious verbal and physical interchanges between their hosts, the young couple – who have hidden divisions of their own – are then, fuelled by alcohol, drawn in to Martha and Georges’ games, and unravel their own layers.
One of Albee’s predominant themes was around how people use false illusions to hide behind reality. Indeed ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ – a refrain chanted throughout by George and Martha – means who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, or who’s afraid of living life without false illusions. For George and Martha their reality has been obscured by alcoholism; by the creation of an imaginary son in the face of infertility; by cruelty and mutual destruction to escape their suffocating interdependence and the failure of their professional ambitions.
Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey, Ragtime) and Dougray Scott (Taken 3 , Mission: Impossible 2) follow in a historic sequence of pairings, including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1966 film, Diana Rigg and David Suchet (1996) and Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin (2005). McGovern is mesmerising and sparklingly addictive as heady, never-hold-back Martha – constantly in animated motion whether listening attentively with vivacious, expressive eyes and responsive or dismissive body gestures, or in full Martha-steals-the-show mode where she is chief disruptor, mocker and provocateur: “I swear…if you existed I’d divorce you…I haven’t been able to see you for years…you’re a blank, a cipher.”
Scott as George has a lower profile, hiding in his frumpy middle-aged cardigan and slacks that shove him into a grey netherworld, and lurks in a passive space, adopting the character of erudite associate professor, endlessly disparaged by his wife and serving a constant round of drinks to his abusers and victims. His assumed soft New England drawl fits with his undercover profile, but like a circling shark to Martha’s violent bull, he doles out his fair share of cutting put-downs and malign abuse to reconnect to power, most forcefully in the third act, after which, both highly vulnerable, he and Martha reconnect.
Charles Aitken as Nick and Gina Bramhill as Honey are overshadowed by Martha and George – that’s the point of the play – but they convincingly capture the ragged edges of their relationship, egged on by their hosts, and repeat the message of how marriage is a battle, how bestial instincts disrupt conventional ideals, and how there is just no hiding. These two characters feel brittle – it would have been so easy for them to leave earlier in the evening (why would you stay? I kept asking myself) – but I get the heady compulsion of their hosts’ mutual destruction. That’s why the audience stay, too.
This dark unravelling isn’t a comfortable watch – “where’s the joy?” one reviewer asks. But joy is not a given. And anyone in a regular relationship will recognise the pointed barbs – “there’s no limit to you, is there?” – and understand how easy it would be to lose control, push it too far, and fall over the edge into the darkness. “Art is not pacification. It’s disturbance”, said Albee. Perhaps he is right; we all pretend too much.
Tickets available from the Theatre Royal website: theatreroyal.org
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