Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

George and Martha have been in an embittered marriage for more than twenty years.  Not content to tear strips off one another — Martha with outright aggression and George with infuriating passive aggression — they like to involve unsuspecting others in their dysfunctional relationship, in a little game called ‘Get the Guests’.


It’s well after midnight when George and Martha return from yet another cocktail party hosted by Martha’s father, the president of the college where George teaches. They’re hardly through the door when Martha starts in on George with clearly old grievances.

George, tired and uninterested in engaging in the argument, just wants to give Martha the drink she demands and go to bed.  But Martha has invited one of the new members of the faculty, Nick, and his sweet wife, Honey, over for drinks.  As their increasingly unpleasant night progresses, what emerges about both couples leaves nobody unscathed.


Taking on the roles of George and Martha is especially not for the faint-hearted, inviting comparison as it may with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and Nick and Honey risk comparison with George Segal and Sandy Dennis.  Hats off for this bravery alone.


But Michael Sparks as George, Andrea Close as Martha, Josh Wiseman as Nick, and Karina Hudson as Honey, under the very capable direction of Cate Clelland, bring these flawed characters believably to life, and do so with very credible American accents (at least to this non-American).  Keeping the audience as uncomfortable as anyone would be witnessing marital dissent, the quartet does a very fine job indeed in bringing out the tension, barely concealed hatred, frustration, thwarted dreams, blind ambition, dread, loss, and even tired compassion underlying the pretence of civilised relationships in both couples.


With a simple yet elegant set and clever direction, the actors played well to the three-sided audience.  The women’s costumes and hair styles represented the 1960s accurately, and, although the men’s were generic, the overall effect was to place the play in a conservative American academic world with sociopolitical upheaval outside the college walls and witty marital torment within.  The characters’ realistic interplay — by turns harrowing, mortifying, and delicious — maintained the audience’s rapt attention throughout.  It’s a production that warrants braving the cold to experience.

Michele E. Hawkins


Image: [L–R] Michael Sparks, Joshua Wiseman, Karina Hudson, and Andrea Close, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Photographer Cathy Breen.