Theatre review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Back to @sohoplace, the theatre with a name so current it's learnt almost half the moves to the "Tragedy" dance, and a new revival of one of the definitive 20th century American classics. In Edward Albee's pitch-black 1962 tragicomedy Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Question Mark Gillian Anderson plays Martha, the daughter of the elderly president of a university. Her husband George (Billy Crudup) is a lecturer in the History department, briefly its head but only when all his other colleagues went off to World War II. Other than that it's been a pretty mediocre career, despite his marriage which was, at least partly, originally a strategic one to help him advance. The fact that it hasn't is just one of the disappointments that has made the relationship a sharp, bitter one, but strangely resilient.

It's 2am when the couple return from a work party to introduce the new faculty members; but Martha's father has high hopes for the new Biology tutor, and has asked her to make sure he and his wife feel welcome.

So Nick (Josh Dylan) and Honey (Phoebe Horn) have been invited to join them for a nightcap that will last until dawn, and as all four get increasingly drunk they start revealing information about their lives and relationships. But while the seemingly Alpha Nick does end up being manipulated into showing some vulnerability, whether there's any truth to anything his hosts have to say is a different story entirely.

Miriam Buether has previously designed sets for some of Mike Bartlett's fight-themed plays and there's a similar feel of this being a combat arena here: A couple of extra rows have been added to the Stalls to make the in-the-round stage actually round, a smaller circular pit surrounded by a sort of short curtain on which are projected the titles of the three acts, beginning with "Fun and Games." Even though George and Martha do talk about games a lot, this opening caption alerts us even more to the way they're toying with the couple they're supposed to be impressing.

Marianne Elliott's production really makes use of the venue's much-publicised ability to create intimacy even from the back row, drawing us into the games the characters play with each other, while the very slowly-moving revolve adds a sense of disorientation to match how very drunk the characters are. What Anderson and Crudup do particularly well in their take on Martha and George is ambiguity: Although they're constantly scoring points off each other and using the younger couple as ammunition, you can never shake the possibility that destroying Nick and Honey was always the real point.

And in Elliott's production it's hard to argue that the blandly attractive younger couple don't deserve it: Horn's Honey is frail both physically and emotionally but with a manipulative streak that's landed her in a marriage to Dylan's superficially intelligent dullard with a superiority complex. Casting such a perfectly Aryan-looking pair sheds a light on how George jumps to the pretty extreme conclusion that Nick's branch of Biology must be Eugenics; the fact that the young professor doesn't take offence at the suggestion speaks volumes in itself. This marriage isn't even one of convenience, it's one of absolute indifference, the childhood sweethearts getting married just because everyone around them assumed they would.

If George and Martha's marriage is built on lies at least they're lies the share, putting an extra layer on the twisted story that plays out. Although I liked the 2017 production I liked this one even more, Elliott once again finding that little extra spark of life in a show that's already acclaimed. I did wonder if knowing the final twist from the start actually increased my enjoyment, watching exactly how the big game of deception plays out to rules only half the players know. It certainly lends an edge to the very funny lines that keep landing throughout, to know the darkness that's underneath them all along.

This is a long evening - and kudos to the venue for not only correctly advertising the time, but also warning in the pre-show email that the interval comes early on, with the second part (consisting of the second and third acts, "Walpurgisnacht" and "The Exorcism") coming in at nearly two hours with only a short pause and no time to leave the auditorium. But I've always said that while I prefer short shows, they can be as long as they like if they justify the running time, and Elliott and her cast more than justify it - and make the evening fly by faster than many shorter shows I've seen.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? by Edward Albee is booking until the 19th of December at @sohoplace Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval and a pause.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.