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Steppenwolf Theatre revives Edward Albee’s American classic

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

George and Martha are back boozing and battling in the Broadway revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” at the Booth Theatre. Edward Albee’s bitter, blistering 1962 comedy about a hopelessly entangled couple and their luckless guests rightfully achieved status long ago as an American classic.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s new production is worth seeing if you have a yen – and the yen – to tangle again with George and Martha, who are solidly portrayed with bleary realism by Tracy Letts and Amy Morton.

Best known as the author of “August: Osage County,” Letts is a persuasive actor whose distinguished-looking George is a surprisingly cool, controlled individual who bides his time while his wife rages. Usually, the character traces a worm-is-turning trajectory over the play’s three acts. Not here. Letts gives a sense that George always hangs on to the reins in his love/hate relationship with Martha.

Morton, who memorably depicted that I’m-running-things-now daughter in “August: Osage County,” is effectively loud and corrosive as Martha. Just like Letts, Morton suggests that Martha, like George, has played their “hump the hostess” midnight games many times before for other unwitting visitors. This night turns out to be the one that gets out of control.

So as much as I enjoyed seeing the play again and admire the performances by Letts and Morton, why did this production seem a bit flat to me?

Could it simply have been a case of post-opening night letdown? The show opened last Saturday and I caught the Sunday matinee. Perhaps; but I am more inclined to think that director Pam MacKinnon’s decision to stage the drama so very naturally has something to do with my reaction. Although “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is the most realistic of Albee’s plays, I suspect I prefer to see it performed in a slightly more heightened manner than this interpretation.

The previous revival in 2005, which starred Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, was the way I like it played. So let’s chalk up my mild sense of disappointment to personal taste. The play remains a great one and this production, staged upon designer Todd Rosenthal’s disheveled setting for a worn-out Victorian downstairs, molders with drab atmosphere.