It has been just six weeks since Martha stopped
screaming at George and he stopped needling her for that final shared moment
that Edward Albee sets up so well in his marvelously structured play about
two people who can only touch each other through vitriol. Then, of course,
it was the Broadway revival team of Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner holding
forth on the stage of the Eisenhower Theatre. He was spectacular and she was
superb - but they've moved on now, and besides, the tickets were $25 to $78.
Now, for all of $15 ($10 for seniors and students) you can make George and
Martha's acquaintance in the small upstairs room of the Lyceum in
Alexandria. This time it is Cal Whitehurst and Janet Smith who assay the
only-semi-successful collegiate associate professor of history and his six
year older wife who reminds him at every opportunity that she's the daughter
of the college president. Star power and production values have given way to
a straightforward but thoroughly competent presentation marked by
Whitehurst's guileful performance.
Storyline: An English
professor at a small New England college and his wife, the daughter of the
college’s president, return from a faculty party. He is displeased to learn
that she has invited a new young professor and his wife back for after-party
drinks. After all, it is 2 a.m. They bicker and fight, inflicting pain and
suffering as if that were the only way they can make any kind of personal
connection with each other. All
through the night they get angrier, and meaner and the guests are dragged
into the struggle.
The word "masterpiece" is often misused in discussion of
works of art. However, it is most definitely appropriate here, for this is not only
a play in which Edward Albee displays the skills of a master playwright, it
is the play that established his reputation. It was his first play to be
produced on Broadway and it earned him his first Tony award (he went on to
earn two more as well as three Pulitzer Prizes). That is not to say that it
is a pleasant play. It is deeply troubling. But, as disturbing as they are, George and Martha are somehow universal and their flaws
universally fascinating. Neither is a person you would chose to add to your
real life circle of acquaintances, but, then, neither is Hamlet and we go to
see him on stage when done well.
Whitehurst plumbs emotional depths in this
production that bring the character of George into sharp focus. He carries
himself with the stooped shouldered shuffling symbolic of the pain the years
in this long-suffering relationship has cost him combined with the
semi-authoritarian habits of speech that years of lecturing in class have
imprinted on his brain. Smith captures a good deal of Martha's surface
bombast and hints at her inner frustrations, but she often lets you see that
she's acting. The same is occasionally true of Michael Fisher who plays the
new faculty member George and Martha entertain, but not so Wendy Lamond-Broughton,
who is quite good as the young bride of the new faculty member.
This play doesn't require special effects,
elaborate sets or gorgeous costumes. Indeed, the original Broadway
production in 1963 is reported to have had a budget of $42,000. Adjusted for
inflation, however, that would amount to over a quarter of a million. No
such budget would be available for this small production.
The set consists of a few chairs, a couch, a coat rack and the
ever-important cocktail cart with a large ice bucket that George takes off
stage to refill. The dramatic impact of the play isn't harmed one bit by
such sparse resources. Its only limitation is the skills of its cast which,
while uneven, are sufficient to carry the audience along on Mr. Albee's
strange tour of a disconcerting couple's relationship.
Written by Edward Albee. Directed by Zina T.
Bleck. Design: Herb Tax (lights, sound, stage management). Cast: Michael
Fisher, Wendy Lamond-Broughton, Janet Smith, Cal Whitehurst. |
