STAGE WEST: Backyard Renaissance's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

 Jessica John and Francis Gercke in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"              Photo by Michael Mackie

            Edward Albee’s cynical history professor George, who in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” devises passive-aggressive “games” such as “Get the Guests” and “Hump the Hostess,” might appreciate a suggestion for a drinking game that would work like this: Every time George or his equally combative spouse Martha downs a fresh cocktail, take a shot.
            But, no, I don’t endorse drinking games; and besides, for all the booze that infuses Albee’s most famous work (now more than 60 years old), “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is not about alcoholism. At least not completely about alcoholism.
            There is poison in the 23-year marriage between the at-once sodden and incendiary George and Martha, but the more times I see Albee’s play the clearer it becomes that it’s not all contained in a bottle.
            From its beginnings a producing company that resolutely embraces emotionally explosive classic theater (“August: Osage County,” last year’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” et al), Backyard Renaissance Theatre Co. has now taken on “Virginia Woolf.” Its artistic director Francis Gercke (who also co-directs this production with Coleman Ray Clark) and its executive director Jessica John are co-starring as George and Martha. Drew Bradford and Megan Carmitchel complete the cast as Nick and Honey, the younger marrieds who find themselves embroiled in George and Martha’s not-so-private war.
            As with its notable production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Backyard has with “Virginia Woolf” instilled a play set decades ago with a contemporary feel. No matter that the set of George and Martha’s ‘60s New England cottage living room (accomplished in minute detail by Chad Ryan) is equipped with a typewriter, a globe and what used to be called a hi-fi. The more urgent interpersonal aspects of this long night’s journey into hell could be witnessed today: two mutually loathing – and self-loathing -- combatants in a toxic marriage emboldened by drink to perform for an unwary younger couple. It’s an atmosphere heavy with brickbats and manipulations, a domestic arena rife with baiting and flirting and hectoring. I don’t know – do “grownups” still spend evenings together boozing from a bottomless bar or is that a suburban trope of the 1960s?
            It’s Albee’s words, however, prolific of rhythm and language, searing with assault, that sustain nearly 64 years after his play bowed on Broadway. Embedded in all the recriminations and salvos of “Virginia Woolf” are expressions of regret and often cruelty that, alas, human beings have not outgrown nor risen above in the years since. Academics, as revealed here, find downright hilarious the tweaking of the child’s refrain “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” into a literary reference, but have they ever come down from their ivory towers?
            “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is a marathon of melodrama – three acts, three hours, two intermissions. Albee titled his acts consecutively “Fun and Games” (no subtle irony there), “Walpurgisnacht” (a nod to a folkloric gathering of witches) and “The Exorcism.” Each ends in a devastating manner. The last brings a drained sense of relief if not genuine catharsis.
            Co-directors Clark and Gercke give Albee’s exhaustive narrative lots of room while aptly emphasizing its most timely blasts and blow-ups. If there’s slack it’s in the George-and-Nick engagements, the likes of which dominate the second act. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is most potent when George and Martha are at it; Nick and Honey are more than bystanders – they are victimized.
            As written, George has more to say than Martha does over the course of three acts, but to me she is the complex and crucial figure. The daughter of the president of the college that employs her husband, Martha’s is a misspent life marked by disappointments and delusion and festering self-destruction. As movingly portrayed by Jessica John, though, and witnessed most in the final act, there’s a frailty there that almost begs sympathy. John’s performance, reeling between coarse and broken, mirrors that of Elizabeth Taylor’s presence in the 1962 film adaptation of “Virginia Woolf” more than any Martha I’ve seen onstage.
            At the opening of the story, said to be at around 2 in the morning, a weary George claims to be not up for company at all, and ready to drop (well, maybe after a drink). As it turns out, no one in the play has more stamina than does George, and Gercke is up to the physical demands. Not only does George become a tireless spouter of taunt and invective, but he’s a prankster often in motion and, as Martha pushes his buttons all the harder, ever on attack. Gercke can get loud -- it’s startling even in a shout-fest like “Virginia Woolf” -- and his George never seems to get as drunk as John’s Martha; but then George could be working off the booze with all his manic gamesmanship.
            Drew Bradford’s is a fully realized Nick, wholly believable as an ex-jock who also has brains but is susceptible to the vicious games his host and hostess play. He holds his own and reacts with equal restraint and incredulity in his confrontations with Gercke’s bullying George. Albee’s Honey character is more substantive than she seems on the surface, and Megan Carmitchel finds that substance given her few opportunities here. She’s shown herself, at Backyard and elsewhere, to be an actor who can intuitively navigate both lead and supporting dramatic roles.
            It shouldn’t be overlooked that this staging benefits from timely intrusions of sounds designed by Kamila Nunez and intermittent music composed by Evan Hart Marsh. Costume designer Brenna Maienschein, too, has attired Martha in three different outfits, each boldly reflective of her mood, with the last in funereal black.
            Each time I see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I imagine afterward what George and Martha – and Nick and Honey, too – might be experiencing the next day or even a few sleep-it-off hours in the wake of this awful evening.
            Better not to think about it.
            “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” runs through March 26 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.