This past weekend, the Hopkins Theatre Company performed Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a three-act whirlwind of a play about two academic couples from opposing generations, each catching and delivering snide, passive aggressive comments across a countless number of liquor-filled glasses.
When the play opens, George (Asa Woo) and Martha (Katherine Budinger), an old, married, academic couple, have just gotten back from one of many faculty parties. It is remarkably late, but Martha has invited a young couple over for a nightcap: Nick (Audrey Douglas) and Honey (Kayla Sinkler). George and Martha make their guests exceedingly uncomfortable by berating each other with snide comments and speeches, which are gradually revealed to be a demented game. Through the play’s three acts — “Fun and Games,” “Walpurgisnacht” and “The Exorcism” — George and Martha reveal nasty facts about their lives, until finally all is revealed, their guests are allowed to leave and the delusional couple plaintively accepts the reality of their depressing situation.
“I think theater should be there to make people uncomfortable,” said Edward Albee, in an interview with the New York Times, released posthumously in 2016. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee’s most popular play, proves this philosophy in a more subtle way. Due to its snarky, fast-paced script, full of opportunity for planned and improvised drink-fueled character movements, the play is uncomfortable through its sheer frantic energy. For the actors, this means a certain level of discomfort, as well.
Smashing bottles, climbing over coffee tables in high heels and pouring innumerable glasses from crystal decanters — the required number of physical gags are difficult to keep track of, to say the least. Seeing as there are only four characters to perform all these stunts, it's easy to recognize the physical commitment of this cast — and any cast, for that matter, which is tasked with the magnitude of this production.
The chosen performance dates were almost too timely to be coincidental: During the Hopkins Theater department’s five performances of Virginia Woolf? from April 2–6, Hopkins invited alumni back to campus as part of their annual “Alumni Weekend” festivities. Some of these activities, as listed on the Hopkins Alumni website, were these very performances. The potential circumstance of a Hopkins alum traveling to Homewood Campus, meeting their currently-enrolled child and somehow sitting down to watch this play as a bonding moment fills me with tears. Multiple generations of Hopkins academics watching the worst possible depiction of their careers is probably exactly what Albee would have wanted.
What makes this play so uncomfortable, though, and I mean “look away, I can’t bear to keep my eyes on the stage” type of uncomfortable, is the incredibly delusional, nonsensical comments made between George and Martha. Their love — though constantly reaffirmed — is veiled or even mixed up in an overwhelming sense of hatred, and their relationship is revealed to be professionally conditioned by Martha’s father, the president of the college that employs George as a history professor.
This element isn’t just uncomfortable for its social implications, but because of its universal relatability with our own lives. Albee is making an argument about human psychology: all of us, to varying degrees, lie to ourselves and to others to maintain a positive self-image. By Virginia Woolf?’s conclusion, the audience has encountered something much more spiritual and universal than the conclusion that “academics are fake.” They have been forced to recognize their own illusions, and are tasked with the inevitable humility of a true authentic life.
To this end, the Hopkins Theatre’s production succeeded greatly. When it was revealed, implicitly, that George and Martha had been lying about their son, Douglas’ (Nick’s) reaction told the whole story. As soon as the audience was given enough time to reach their own conclusions, a spotlight center stage illuminated Martha kneeling, weeping at the revelation of her infertility. George tries to console Martha with hesitant promises: “It will be better... It will be... maybe.” In the end, he mournfully sings the titular jibe, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (to the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”) and Martha delivers the devastating line “I... am... George,” signifying her fear for honesty and cold reality, which made the modernist author Virginia Woolf’s literary works so captivating.
But if the conclusion was done with expert tact, producing a feeling of haunting astonishment, the acting at the beginning of this performance was dizzying and difficult to follow. And though the discomfort I felt was partially by design, I couldn’t nag the feeling that something else was at play.
Far from feeling like a cynical married couple arguing with subtextual remarks, Budinger and Woo’s dynamic in the first act felt like a pair of jesters from a Shakespearean play. Woo’s portrayal of George, in particular, was a far cry from the old, jaded professor that this play calls for. Instead, her delivery reminded one of a lighthearted schoolboy who can’t resist a sarcastic jab. Rather than deliver her lines with an absent-minded frown, Woo utilized that same wide grin, which distracted from George and Martha’s habitual, inconsequential dynamic.
I would say that the chemistry between Douglas and Sinkler was much more true to form, with Douglas affecting the ambitious, uncomfortable academic and Sinkler the aloof, innocent bystander. Unfortunately, another disappointment came in Douglas’s interactions with Woo, as the two failed to capture the passive aggressive politics of interdisciplinary conversation.
So, unfortunately, though this play is meant to be uncomfortable, I found a more disappointing reason for my discomfort. Talking with friends after the performance, I found my thoughts were by no means unique. In my opinion, the oddball and sometimes surreal characteristics of this play would be better revealed through a slow unwinding, not a constant barrage of forced enthusiasm. I simply couldn’t give full conceit to these characters, and so while I acknowledge the actors’ individual efforts, the overall dynamic of this production did not feel true to Albee’s original vision.
Perhaps in revealing this strong criticism of the play’s production, I’m attempting to avoid my own delusions — I generally want to be positive about the arts at Homewood Campus. But I also have to be honest about my instinctive reaction to these performances, so that I don’t contribute to the siloed politics of academia that this play aims to confront. If you feel that criticizing this production is doing more harm than good, then all I can say is: after we acknowledge our faults, it will get better... maybe.
