A Delicate Balance

The setting for this 1966 play by American great Edward Albee, 4 years after the iconic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, reads as follows: “The living room of a large and well-appointed suburban home”. Which is very difficult to achieve when you’ve only got two cents to rub together. Director/designer Victor Kalka has to make do with a row of boxed-in succulents and a well-stocked drinks trolley on his very wide stage. There’s no sign of a chair for anyone to sit on, or a small side-table, for the whole long evening. 

The drinks trolley becomes the symbol of this family’s wealth and privilege, as Tobias (Martin Bell) mixes drink after drink for his sister-in-law Claire (Suzann James), his suddenly returning (from her fourth marriage!) daughter Julia (Zoe Crawford), and eventually for his wife Agnes (Alice Livingstone). It’s a never-ending parade of martinis, manhattans, gin-and-tonics.

Also to this furniture-free house come good old Harry (James Bean) and Edna (Alison Chambers), friends of Tobias, who have escaped from their own home and who, without any further explanation, look simply terrified. “There was nothing...” says James, “... but we were very scared.” Of course you can stay, no question, you can stay in Julia’s room. This is just before Julia returns and demands to inhabit her old room.

By this time Agnes and Tobias have shown no warmth or affection at all, only a chillsome and calculated sense of duty. And by the time this long weekend is over they will finally disintegrate into fear and rage. Their marriage, held together with alcohol, pointed barbs and mutual loathing, is ready to self-destruct.

There’s plenty of unexplained life in this family, who can barely stop from pulling themselves apart. Whatever happened to Teddy, the son of Tobias and Agnes, whose disappearance has somehow lead to this emasculated situation? And is the serially-divorced Julia really back home?

It’s a joy to be reconnected, even in a paired-down staging, with this brilliantly constructed, unfathomable play.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Blake Condon.