I always temper my expectations when certain plays are remounted. I often avoid community theatre because it rarely wants to challenge their audience so much as work its way through the theatre equivalent of the Great American Song Book. That isn’t bad, in and of itself. But there’s a difference between contemporary headlines spurning a new production of The Crucible and simply producing the 10 billionth production of Streetcar because some guy wants to scream through a ripped shirt.
At least the continuous productions of 1962’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (through June 18 at FLAX art & design, Oakland) can be partly attributed to its status as one of the more memorable American plays focused on a woman over 40. Whether you’re a Liz Taylor fan, a Simpsons fans (erroneously believing the play is the source the show’s famous “Queen of the Harpies!” line), or an Edward Albee fan who never got around to this seminal work, you probably want to see what all the fuss is about.
I actually am a Liz Taylor fan, but have never seen any version of Albee’s story before this one from the Oakland Theater Project. Spoiler alert: You don’t get to meet Virginia.
The folks you do meet are ivy league professor George (Adrian Roberts) and his wife Martha (Lisa Ramirez, whom OTP regulars will remember as Blanche in the company’s misfire production of Streetcar). In fact, we see them before we ever meet them, as their faces are projected upon white banners on either side of Dina Zarif’s set—mostly white with a conversation pit at center, lined around the perimeter with empty cocktail glasses, and a mirrored floor and upstage wall.
No sooner have the pair entered and clinked glasses (both clad in black, via costumer Marina Polakoff) when they begin bickering. Not over any one thing, but everything. Martha is doggedly determined to emasculate her husband and George knows just how to push the right buttons with his drunken shrew of a wife. Truly a love for the ages. It’s also after 2am and they’re still expecting guests from the night’s party thrown Martha’s father, president of the university where George teaches.
Their guests are late-20s couple (clad all in white), whose names I don’t recall being spoken, but the program says they’re Nick (William Hodgson) and Honey (Wera von Wulfen). Nick is also a professor at the university, and his wife Honey is mousey to the point where one wonders if she can even speak without her cheeks turning red. She’ll certainly have the opportunity over the course of this early morning, wherein the younger couple find themselves unknowing participants in the George and Martha’s game of power—a game for which the rules are changing.
Albee’s play is one of those works where you have to understand going in that you’re about spend the next three hours with some truly despicable people, the not-fun kinds of sadists who take offense to the idea that anyone’s feelings matter beyond their own. George may not have known that Martha invited another couple into their game, but he’s more than game to play the cat for two unsuspecting mice who have their comfort levels eroded as the hours wax on for a perceived eternity.
If that’s too much for you to take over the course of three hours, plus intermissions, then shape your expectations accordingly. (I personally would have snapped George’s neck after the first drink and insult, but that’s just me.)
If, however, you want to see the actors play on the aforementioned set, then you should prepare for a long evening. Under the direction of OTP co-founder Michael Socrates Moran, Ramirez’s performance of Martha is such a typhoon that it completely eclipses her co-stars. Roberts is a fine actor and, as George, appears to find legitimate glee from needling the shockingly-blonde Hodgson as Nick, but neither seems quite the script-required match for Martha when she sets them in her sights. Von Wulfen is effective at showing Honey as the reed that will snap if bent too far. The fact that the couples’ color scheme reverses by the end is given more heft by that performance.
(It should be noted that I was authorized to review the final preview performance, which had one actor on-book late in the show and two call for lines. Nevertheless, the gist of their performances was clear.)
Though OTP still advertises the continued requirement of masks, the policy isn’t enforced as strongly as one would hope. In addition to the people pulling down their masks to drink, some went to their seats without being masked at all. Fortunately, over the course of the aforementioned three hours, my Aranet4 read CO² levels that seemed to peak around 1473ppm.
Classic or no, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? will try the patience of someone not already enamored with the material. In particular, its twist finale requires a level of empathy for the older couple that I found hard to muster. Still, Moran’s production is a slickly-mounted show, as if he were aiming to give a fresh wash and a new coat of polish to classic car he’s inherited. It’s a long ride with some of the worst passengers you’ll ever meet, but at least it still has that new car smell.
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? runs through June 18 at FLAX art and design, Oakland. Tickets and more info here.
