Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

One of American theatre's most enduring pieces - known to a wider audience thanks to the classic 1966 film adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - has been revitalised at Kirribilli's Ensemble Theatre. More than half a century after it was first performed, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is still a striking comedy drama that drips with venom, filled with darkly magnetic characters.

It is 2 o'clock in the morning when university professor George (Darren Gilshenan) and his bawdy wife Martha (Genevieve Lemon) burst drunkenly into their home. Immediately, the absolutely gorgeous and detail-filled set design by Michael Hankin gives the audience an impression of what kind of couple the middle-aged duo are. Between the loquacious barbs slung seemingly innocuously by George and Martha, it is revealed that a young colleague of George's (Brandon McClelland) is coming over with his wife (Claire Lovering). When the young, seemingly perfect couple arrive, what had seemed to be minor cracks in the veneer of civility that they struggle to uphold reveal themselves to be festering wounds.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a long play (three hours including intermission), but that length allows the performers to truly stretch out. Lengthy, rambling conversations spiral around each other, but the audience is hypnotised by the subtle shifts in power that take place as the characters drag each other down with wit and underlying desperation. The play never once feels overlong because of the way it draws the audience into the drunken ambiance of the messy living room, and the suggestion of pain and regret that will inevitably precede and succeed the scenes witnessed.

The cast assembled at Ensemble to tackle this theatre behemoth rise to the challenge with aplomb. Genevieve Lemon in particular is stunning as Martha, so much so that the audience may miss her when she occasionally leaves the stage. Brandon McClelland too does an exceptional job of gradually ramping up the intensity of his performance in peaks and troughs as his character comes face to face with things that both resemble and frighten him. 

A work as thematically complex as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - its main concerns of self-loathing and regret complicated by the forces of social expectation - is brilliantly unpacked by this cast. Claire Lovering swings like a pendulum between happy-go-lucky and deeply sad, and Darren Gilshenan's George seems unable or even unwilling to hide his wounds. Despite (or perhaps because of) the deep hurt contained within, the cast of four truly commit to their roles and deliver a goldmine of intense and often uncomfortable humour.

Coming through this play is like going through your own harrowing evening of too many drinks and too much honesty, but there is a wonderful catharsis. Ironically for a play that contains so much falsehood in its dialogue, its honesty is arguably still unmatched by any other classic work of theatre. 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is playing at Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli until Sunday June 18th. Production photos by Prudence Upton.