Mary Leland reviews Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Everyman Palace in Cork.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Everyman Palace, Cork
A big play with a small cast offers everyone involved the opportunity to make a difference, and the cast of this Row C production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? grab the chance with a starving clutch. The result is an energy linking each character to the other in a way not often seen in modern theatre. This is playwright Edward Albee's great talent; in an excoriating social drama he manages to suggest connections that, in lighter hands, might be translated as affection. Director Mary Curtin catches this almost contradictory flavour in her management of the meeting of two married couples, one pair shrieking corrosive abuse at each other as their union goes down in flames, the other discovering the futility of compromise as they begin their years together.
Or so it seems. The groves of academe are a rich source of material for many writers, but here the small-town university - indicated in Patrick Murray's panelled, book-lined set, which in itself is a metaphor for the implied loss of grace suffered by historian George and shrew Martha - is more excuse than context.
It allows the word-play, or sword-play, which glitters on the surface of the script; it allows some verbal comedy, and it provides a convincing reason why George and Martha should ever have got together in the first place.
This is the crucial obstacle to belief in such people in such a situation, and it is also overcome by the inner strength of these four performances.
Although his accent slips sometimes, Barry O'Reilly's George is no less deadly for being soft-spoken, while Gerry McLouglin's stage presence and sense of timing make her rough-tongued Martha totally convincing.
The two minor roles are possibly more difficult, in that they seem to be foils rather than rapiers in this eviscerating fencing-match, but Linda Kent and John Morgan fight it out together, and to the same redeeming end.
Runs until August 16th
