Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Booth Theater, New York
March 2, 2013
The Real Housewives have nothing on George and Martha's all-night ragers. Watching Pam McKinnon's assured revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, we are unflinching voyeurs at these recognizable middle-class disillusions: stalled careers, failed pregnancies, loveless marriages. Fifty years later, Edward Albee's twist ending packs more suspense than any commercial break cliffhanger on Bravo. More than most plays, Virginia Woolf is probably indestructible. Here, just when the staging and set (where Todd Rosenthal cleverly stacks books in the fireplace) seem conventional, the actors increase the stakes.
Tracy Letts reinvents George. This overworked college professor (forties, but looking older) is positively energized by intimidation. In a round of "Get the Guests," he becomes an intellectual bully, always with a sharper wit, a more vicious tongue. With Letts in command, George's cruel streak comes through: Martha
first brings up their son, "the apple of our eye," but George pulls him into the open, turns him
into a tawdry parlor game yielding years of tamped-down anger. It's a surprising performance.