Actors make ‘Virginia Woolf’ original

The cast of four works
together brilliantly.

By MILAN PAURICH

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Any community theater company with the chutzpah to revive Edward Albee’s legendary 1962 Broadway play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is asking for trouble.

Besides the inevitable comparisons with the most famous “Virginia Woolf” of all — director Mike Nichols’ Oscar-winning 1966 screen adaptation which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as Martha and George, Albee’s bickering, booze-addled combatants — there’s the somewhat awkward matter of length.

At three hours-plus and with only four speaking roles, “Virginia Woolf?” makes a lot of demands on the actors and the audience. One casting misstep and the entire production could sink faster than the Titanic. Fortunately, first-time director John Pecano has been blessed with a dream quartet of actors for the New Castle Playhouse’s staging of Albee’s most famous work. John D. Holt, Stephanie Holt, John Cox and Candace DiLullo all bring such a distinctive spin to their iconographic roles that it’s like seeing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for the very first time.

Set in the wee small hours of the morning on the campus of a small New England college, the play is divided into three acts ("Fun and Games,” “Walpurgisnacht” and “The Exorcism”). Each chapter tightens a viselike grip on its characters’ throats, building to an emotional crescendo that will leave theatergoers both exhilarated and more than a little drained.

Entire play

Though the 129-minute film version of “Virginia Woolf?” made some judicious — and much-needed — trims to Albee’s rambling, discursive text, the NCP production serves up the entire play from start to finish. The result is something akin to one of Eugene O’Neill’s marathon epics (“The Iceman Cometh,” “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night”) minus the redemptive flights of O’Neill-ian poetry.

Albee’s dialogue can seem a tad affected, even strained at times. His characters occasionally sound like they stepped out of a 1940’s Hollywood film noir (”I got windshield wipers on my eyes because I married you, baby”) instead of a passive-aggressive history professor’s living room. All that’s missing are the noir-ish shadows, bungled cons and double-dealing damsels.

As the party hosts, real-life married couple John and Stephanie Holt make George and Martha’s midlife marital malaise cut painfully close to the marrow. Although “loud, vulgar” earth mother Martha is usually the dominant force in any production of “Virginia Woolf?,” John Holt’s sly, subtle performance as George makes it a more equitable balance.

Holt doesn’t have to raise his voice to command the stage. An arched eyebrow or dismissive shrug of the shoulders are all that he needs to galvanize our attention. It’s a masterful interpretation of a notoriously tricky role. And Stephanie Holt brilliantly conveys the wounded animal lurking beneath Martha’s braying, bullying façade.

Scarred survivors

If love is indeed a battlefield, these two incomparable performers show us every gash, wound and gaping bullet hole. It may not be a pretty sight, but you won’t be able to take your eyes off them. By the time the play/war ends, there are no victors, only badly scarred survivors. George and Martha’s late-night guests, newly hired biology professor Nick and his trophy wife, Honey, are traditionally overshadowed by their more histrionic elders. But Cox and DiLullo refuse to play second fiddle to anyone.

DiLullo’s face registers myriad shades of mortification as Honey squirms in exquisite embarrassment at the slings and arrows being bandied about by her hosts. Cox’s performance as Nick gains considerable momentum and force throughout the evening. He uses a deliciously mean, dirty laugh to convey Nick’s increasing panic and desperation as George and Martha’s “cocktail party” quickly spirals out of control.

Unlike most productions of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” the New Castle Playhouse revival is truly an ensemble effort. All four actors do some of the best, and bravest, work I’ve seen on a community theater stage in years. Also much appreciated is the NCP’s considerate 7:30 start time for evening performances. I wish that every tri-state area theater would follow their lead.