Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup give towering performances in Edward Albee’s intense 1962 drama, about a middle-aged couple engaged in vicious, liquored-up psychological games to hide the core sadness of their marriage.
asserted
Anderson → give → marriage
Marianne Elliot’s production turns a mid-century modern living room (by the ever-excellent Miriam Buether) into a slowly revolving gladiatorial arena, perfect for this in-the-found venue.
asserted
production → turn → venue
The shifting dynamics and brutally funny repartee of the central couple are immaculately mapped.
asserted
dynamics → shift → couple
Anderson is as good as you’d hope and expect as the bleary, destructive Martha, but Crudup is a revelation as George, wounded but quick-witted and nimble, like a greying mongoose battling a striking snake.
asserted
Crudup → hope → snake
After the London misfires of his solo show Harry Clarke and a prattling, musical High Noon, we finally see what the Broadway fuss was about.
asserted
fuss → see → what
Albee, who died in 2016, considered this early, Tony award-winning work flawed, even juvenile, and was irked by the shadow it cast over his later, bracingly metaphysical works.
asserted
it → die → works
(The 1966 film version, which fed vampirically off the drunken marital strife of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, didn’t help.)
asserted
which → feed → Taylor
The young couple enlisted as witnesses and weapons by George and Martha are sketchily drawn and passive, though given texture here by Phoebe Horn and Josh Dylan.
asserted
couple → enlist → Horn
But as a vehicle for two splendid actors to go the full nine rounds of emotional extremes, Who’s Afraid is peerless.
asserted
’s → go → extremes
It begins with the central duo returning, rankled, from a faculty party at the regional college where Martha’s father is president and George works in the history department.
asserted
George → begin → department
The first of countless strong drinks are poured.
asserted
first → pour → drinks
(Anyone trying to match the characters glass for glass here, as some do with Withnail and I, would surely require hospitalisation before Act 2.)
asserted
some → try → Act
Their chafing has a tired, long-wed edge.
asserted
chafing → have → edge
Until, that is, Martha announces she’s invited new biology lecturer Nick and his ditzy wife Honey back for nightcaps, at daddy’s behest.
asserted
she → announce → behest
Galvanized by an audience, Martha ramps up the belittlement she heaps on George.
asserted
she → ramp → George
He parries, retrenches and re-engages.
asserted
He → parry → ?
When left alone with Nick, he runs mental rings around the younger man, trapping him into unwise admissions – under Elliot’s direction, it seems George is storing up ammunition, knowing how his wife will use this young stud-muffin as the evening progresses.
asserted
evening → leave → muffin
Sure enough, Martha performs a grotesque seduction of Nick while Honey becomes steadily more inebriated.
asserted
Honey → perform → Nick
She mocks George’s sexual prowess, his lack of professional ambition, and a tragedy that may or may not have happened in his past.
uncertain
that → mock → past
In an otherwise ostensibly realistic play, the shifting nature of truth foreshadows Albee’s more experimental later works.
asserted
nature → shift → works
Anderson is magnificent here, first in a cocktail dress and then in cigarette pants and button-straining angora.
asserted
Anderson → strain → pants
Her Martha is lean and hard, with a raptor’s gimlet eye, unsentimental in the deployment of her fading glamour.
asserted
Martha → fade → glamour
She has a particular, calculated shimmy.
asserted
She → have → shimmy
As in her 2014 performance in Streetcar Named Desire (which won her a Standard Best Actress award) and her last London stage role in All About Eve, she refuses to submit to the actor’s vice of wanting to be liked.
asserted
she → name → vice
“I’m loud and vulgar… but I’m not a monster,” Martha declares.
asserted
Martha → ’m → ?
And she’s not.
asserted
she → ’ → ?
But it’s close.
asserted
it → ’ → ?
Crudup, in a shapeless flannel blazer and a swept-back cockade of hair, seems physically cowed but his eyes constantly dart for advantage.
asserted
eyes → sweep → advantage
As Nick, Dylan declines from jockish swagger into the realisation that he’s a plaything for predators.
asserted
he → decline → predators
Horn suggests a measure of wilful steel beneath Honey’s vacuity and is always in the moment, despite rarely being in focus.
uncertain
Horn → suggest → focus
Read More
These parts are underwritten and functional, and the central revelation – when it comes – seems too weak to support the torrid psychodrama.
asserted
it → read → psychodrama
The slow, relentless slide of the last act, with Martha baby-talking and George incanting Latin, feels overegged.
asserted
George → talk → Latin
This is a chance to see two actors at the top of their game, and at exhaustive, almost exhausting length.
asserted
This → see → length
The Aporia
-in-Whos-Afraid-of-Virginia-Woolf--sohoplace--Credit-Johan-Persson_02033.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp&quality=75)
-Photo-by-Helen-Murray.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp&quality=75)
-and-Dan-Hand-(Young-Martin)-in-Martin-Guerre-at-The-Old-Vic-20.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp&quality=75)
