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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
By Terry Westhoff
Come spend a quiet evening with George and Martha; they will surely liven up any party. The tagline for the multi-award winning and controversial play written by Edward Albee closely examines the implications of social class, sexual taboo, and the wide generational gap during a turbulent time in American history.
The story centers around an older, irritable couple named George and Martha, played by Jack Patterson and Ann Colby Stocking. Late one evening, after a college faculty party, George and Martha invite a young, energetic couple new to the college, for a nightcap. Once George and Martha step inside their home, the fireworks start. Martha is drunk and George has had enough of her sloppy, bawdy behavior. After Martha tells George she invited a couple over for drinks, he becomes cranky, and Martha quickly lashes out at him. The couple's instability and penchant for searing arguments is rapidly established. They do seem like the typical old married couple, but their biting remarks take dysfunction to another level.
Soon the young couple, Nick and Honey, played by Paul Haitkin and Teal Sherer, enter the scene. What happens next is a tour de force test of wills as the couples play psychological games such as "hump the hostess" and "get the guests." The young couple never really knows what hit them as they step into a mental and emotional trap that George and Martha control. George sizes up Nick as Martha quickly takes a fondness to him and his boyish, all-American looks. As the alcohol flows, so do the insults and the deceptive prying into Nick and Honey ‘s lives.
George warns Nick about Martha's father, who is the president of the college and the game that needs to be played to move up within the faculty ranks. Nick, though, comes off as arrogant and brushes off George's comments as trivial words. But, slowly, George is able to manipulate Nick into telling him personal secrets about his marriage to Honey. As Martha and Honey rejoin the festivities, Honey confesses that Martha told her about their son. This revelation opens a can of worms that George considers unforgivable and the war between him and Martha intensifies. Caught in the middle of the back-and-forth banter is Nick and Honey as they are forced to match wits in a struggle of power and life lessons.
The ruthless and course language throughout the play is still as provocative today as it apparently was to audiences that first saw the play over forty years ago. Patterson and Stocking certainly do their part to deliver each insult and caustic remark with a kind of bravado that makes the audience feel uncomfortable to be witnessing their descent into belligerence and psychological warfare. But, this is exactly how the play is intended to be viewed. Patterson captures George's character as a man striped naked of his pride and fighting to gain every inch of it back. Stocking embodies Martha's complexities as she languidly tears apart the last bit of George's dignity in front of their guests.
Haitkin and Sherer keep pace with their co-stars as they try to stand their ground with both the alcohol consumption and the verbal expletives. Haitkin plays Nick with the right kind of boyish innocence that allows him to be swallowed up into George and Martha's warped sense of entertainment. Sherer gives one of the more memorable performances as the naïve wife of Nick. She keeps herself in an intoxicated state through most of the play, and is able to sustain the nuances of acting drunk while swiftly reacting to Nick's blundering confessions to George. All four actors deliver exceptional performances in a play that is far from easy to personify the intricacy of each
character.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is 0Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood,. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 1. Tickets: $20.
(323) 960-7711
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