(Photo by David Elzer)
(Photo by Joe Regalbuto)
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WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? In 1962, long before Edward Albee’s The Goat, came his cat and mouse. Martha and George (Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin) flail at each other in marital purgatory for the almost carnal satisfaction that torture arouses. These are academics, so their wit and barbarism are varsity-level — rattles in a snake’s tail. Brittle George is a frustrated history professor (“the shadow of a man flickering around the edges of the house”) at a New England college; Martha’s the college president’s brash daughter. One morning, between 2 and 3 a.m., an arrogant, young and studly professor of biology (David Furr), and his mousy wife (Kathleen Early), swing by for cocktails. The event — set up by Martha’s offstage father — contains a recipe for everyone’s evisceration, which comes about through a series of party games, ranging from “Hump the Hostess” to “Get the Guests.” There’s considerable suspense to the raw savagery that’s supposed to culminate in the play’s actual reason for being — how, in Act 3, George destroys his and Martha’s imaginary son. This is Albee’s link to the Theater of the Absurd — going strong in 1962 — which blurs distinctions between reality and invention into the view that life is so fucked up, the only sanity we have is from the meaning we create. Anthony Page’s staging — which did just fine in New York and London, implodes at the Ahmanson: Maybe it’s the huge venue that forces the actors to amp up the style to sitcom size at the cost of the play’s innate menace. George and Martha’s games are wildly entertaining in a warm and fuzzy TV kinda way, so that Act 3 comes off as literary artifice, tagged on rather than drawn through. Irwin serves up an undeniably magnificent kaleidoscope of wry twitches and subterranean stratagems. David Furr’s lughead biologist traverses his descent into drunken hell with pleasing hubris. The women do most of the damage to this production. Early’s Honey is an overblown comedic belle leftover from The Dukes of Hazzard, and Turner’s Martha establishes a gorgeously gregarious presence, which she then occupies with such flippant delight, her devastation — on which the drama depends — is a hard sell. The shelf of L.P.’s in John Lee Beatty’s realistic period set is a marvelous emblem of the times. AHMANSON THEATRE, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m (added perf Thurs., March 15, 1 p.m.); thru March 18. (213) 6289-2772. (Steven Leigh Morris) For an interview with Albee, see Theater feature.
