[ ON STAGE ]
Cast brings out
ugliness of ‘Woolf’
The dialogue of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" doesn't have the same shock value it did 40 years ago, but the ugliness of the story and the cruelty of the characters are fully intact in the Army Community Readers Theatre production of Edward Albee's living-room horror fest.
Richard Pellett and Jo Pruden star as George and Martha. Shari Lynn and Russell Motter complete the cast as Honey and Nick.
Director Vanita Rae Smith and her all-star cast explore every hideous nook and cranny of the tale. There are a few funny moments amid all the caustic quips and insults, but "Woolf" is a brutal dissection of a toxic yet oddly symbiotic marriage. Contemporary sitcom "insult comedy" does not compare.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?": Presented by Army Community Theatre at Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets $6. Call 438-4480.
The brutal battle of wits takes place in George and Martha's home. He is a history professor at a small New England college. She is his wife and just happens to be the daughter of the near-godlike school president. George seemed to be on the fast track to success when he married Martha, who is six years his senior and apparently had few other prospects when they met. Now, at 46, it seems certain George will never be promoted to full professor, let alone become the department chairman. Martha contemptuously describes him as a "bog" and rarely misses an opportunity to belittle him.
She has plenty of opportunities when a younger couple unwittingly accepts an invitation to stop by at 2 a.m. after a faculty cocktail party.
Nick, the newest member of the biology department, is handsome, athletic and ambitious. Martha wastes no time pointing out that Nick is everything George never was. George takes an almost instant dislike to Nick and then tries to shake him up while probing for weaknesses.
Nick's wife, Honey, is fragile, somewhat dim-witted, and spends a good part of the next few hours throwing up in the bathroom or sleeping on the bathroom floor.
Nick and Honey become pawns to be used and abused as George and Martha raise the stakes in their verbal slugfest. They have rules they follow when abusing each other, but the younger couple isn't attuned to them and is left to blunder along blindly. The psychological "games" get nastier as the night goes on, with Nick and Honey gradually becoming participants. Martha flirts aggressively with Nick, and George bores in relentlessly on the problems he detects in the younger couple's relationship.
It also becomes more difficult to determine how much of what George and Martha are revealing about each other is true.
JOHN BERGER / JBERGER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jo Pruden (front) relaxes with Richard Pellett, Shari Lynn and Russell Motter after a performance of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at Army Community Theatre.
THE ACT PRODUCTION is a fabulous showcase for Pruden. No one in local theater plays tart-tongued women better than she does, and although such roles have been her forte for years, there is much more to this one than sarcasm and insults. There are several pivotal scenes during which Pruden deftly reveals hidden facets of Martha's character, and it is marvelous to observe her work in the intimacy of a stripped-down readers' theater performance.
Pellett, the longtime alpha male of director Smith's troupe, was a bit tentative and fussy with his first few lines Sunday but thoroughly believable thereafter. His first scene working alone with Motter was nicely developed, giving the first glimpse behind George's facade as a hapless loser. Several later scenes found Pellett in perfect form portraying the sadistic perpetrator of several nasty mind games.
Motter likewise gives an impressive performance in gradually revealing that Nick might not be quite as naive or as wholesome as he seems to be.
Lynn has the least to do but makes the most of Smith's deviations from the usual readers theater format. "Woolf" includes a limited amount of physical interaction between the actors, and this time they stand up and walk off the "stage," rather than turn away from the audience in their swivel chairs to convey a character's departure.
Lynn wears a blank expression much of the time, reinforcing the impression that Honey is not only childish, but low on intellect as well. At one point, Lynn dips a finger into her glass of brandy and sticks it in her mouth -- a fine mute embellishment to her performance.
Purists who know Albee's script by heart might take issue with Smith's decision to trim lines so that "Woolf" runs just under three hours with a conventional intermission after Act 1 and only a "stretch break" after Act 2. All others will find that her revised "Woolf" is fascinating and well paced. Despite the horror of the story and the length of the performance, the production never seems to drag. It is a memorable showcase for four talented performers as well.
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