Sitting through Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is not what you’d call a breeze. The three-act, three-hour drama is an up-close look at two troubled marriages hurtling off the rails. But it’s the kind of train wreck you can’t look away from.
After a 10-year absence from San Diego’s professional stages, the landmark 1963 play is back this month in a new staging by Backyard Renaissance Theatre at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in East Village.
The production that opened Saturday co-stars Backyard’s married co-founders Francis Gercke and Jessica John as the battling spouses George and Martha, whose cruel and manipulative party games push both their marriage, and that of a younger couple, to the brink.
Co-directed by Coleman Ray Clark and Gercke, this handsomely appointed production holds nothing back in the monstrousness of its characters. But it does infuse more, much-welcomed humor into the story than I remember seeing in previous San Diego productions in 2016, 2009 and 2007.
Francis Gercke, left, Drew Bradford, rear, Megan Carmitchel and Jessica John in Backyard Renaissance Theatre’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in San Diego. (Michael Makie)
Set in 1961, “Virginia Woolf” unfolds in near-real time in the New England home of George, a mediocre, middle-aged college history professor, and his lascivious lush of a wife, Martha, whose father is the college president.
After a faculty party one night, Martha invites the college’s virile new biology professor, Nick, and his vapid wife, Honey, over for a wee-hours drink. From 2 a.m. to dawn, the foursome drink heavily, fight, lie, laugh, dance, reveal secrets, flirt and exorcise demons from their past, before the rising sun brings clarity, if not healing.
The play unfolds as a series of battles, where the unaccomplished George and the bitterly disappointed Martha exchange vicious and demeaning insults, using Nick and Honey as the unsuspecting pawns in their war for supremacy.
Chad Ryan’s scenic design of George and Martha’s rotting-from-the-inside house is decorated with the symbols of war, like a framed sword, a model man-of-war battleship and a bust of Napoleon.
And when Martha slips into costume designer Brenna Maienschein’s form-fitting leopard-print dress, her predatory strategy to seduce Nick as the final flank maneuver against her husband becomes clear.
As Martha, John is brassy, intimidating, sexually aggressive and witheringly sadistic. By contrast, Gercke’s emasculated George speaks in the monotonous style of a man worn down by life. For most of the play, his George weakly parries Martha’s jabs with passive-aggressive jokes, until he finally lands a verbal death blow.
Drew Bradford brings more aggressiveness and calculation to the role of Nick that I’ve seen in past productions, and Megan Carmitchel’s Honey, who spends most of the play quietly drunk or passed out, is naive and childlike. Although all the conflict in the play occurs between George and Martha, Nick and Honey’s marriage seems more loveless and doomed.
The production features an original music score by Evan Hart Marsh, lighting by Chris Rynne, sound by Kamila Nunez and props by Jeffrey Neitzel.
“Virginia Woolf” is one of the monumental plays of 20th-century theater, and a great test for its actors.
Is it easy to watch? No. It’s brutal and exhausting and its two intermissions are a necessary respite from the cage match unfolding onstage. But this is a strong and well-acted production and it’s well worth the ticket, if you’re up for a fight.
‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. Through March 21
Where: Backyard Renaissance Theatre at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center. 930 Tenth Avenue, San Diego
Tickets: $50
Online: backyardrenaissance.com