"Be careful, Martha, I'll rip you to pieces."

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.

Amy Morton, more human than Gorgon, also breaks from those over-the-top monster Marthas. She keeps her cool and holds her liquor, but when the punches roll, she fights to stay in the ring. This Martha has had to keep up with overbearing George all these years. I was curious at times how the reversed roles of this power balance meshed with the text. Martha accuses George of being "some nobody... somebody without the guts to make anybody proud of him." Why was Letts's aggressive George held back? Is he really an insufferable bore on campus? Cock of the walk at home, then a wimp and a pushover in public? Morton's Martha wouldn't be the life of the party, either, but at least she's self-assured and sexually assertive.

Madison Dirks (Nick) and Carrie Coon (Honey) complete the quartet, though some cuts have been made that diminish Honey's role. Perhaps that's best: From the moment the guests enter, the rest of the night is inevitable. Coon is already inebriated from the start; she's a quiet drunk and doesn't draw much attention to herself. Dirks drips with sweat around Letts's George; all he has to compete are leering, adulterous eyes and his smug pride in his academic record. It's George's evening this time, George who serves each provocation, and Martha who lobs them back.