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Fiona Mountford's rating
, Masterful take on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
By
Fiona Mountford
15 Apr 2009
Inspired perhaps by memories of Kathleen Turner’s magnificently big and blowsy performance as Martha, it’s easy to presume that Edward Albee’s masterpiece of marital meltdown needs to be staged in a large venue. It requires, so we might allow our thinking to run, sufficient space for emotional ventilation.
Yet here, in the confines of this tiny studio, we find ourselves, awkwardly and thrillingly, shoehorned in as extra guests at the party from hell, which sees not even the dissection — there’s no pain to be inflicted on the dead — but the vivisection of a marriage.
Matthew Kelly’s remarkable career renaissance continues apace as the failing academic George, a man who may be down but certainly knows how to lash out at his caustic goad of a wife, Martha.
Kelly, rumpled and crumpled even down to the hair that slouches disconsolately over his forehead, suggests quite beautifully someone who knows — and hates himself for the knowledge — that loathsome cruelty is his only chance of a victory, albeit a Pyrrhic one.
Tracey Childs hits the part of the destructive, self-destroying Martha running and, wonderfully, doesn’t let up for a riveting three hours in Andrew Hall’s precision-tuned production. Dressed in a plunging black dress and dripping bright red lipstick, she looks like the ultimate vamp from Hollywood films of yore and behaves like one, too, around Nick, the young man through whom she has decided to humiliate her husband on this particular evening. Over everything looms the ominous unseen presence of “Daddy”, Martha’s university chancellor father and the object of her barely concealed Electra complex.
While Kelly and Childs take us through a remarkable cycle of emotions, some of them even devastatingly gentle, during their toxic spilling of secrets, it’s the tricky lot of the other two actors principally to watch them from the alcohol-sodden sidelines.
Mark Farrelly and Louise Kempton are perfect foils as the neat young couple who are chewed up and spat out like easy meat by the dangerous carnivores that are George and Martha. Farrelly in particular impresses as Nick, swaggering and shying away by turns and then, eventually, giving in to his naked ambition and Martha’s lust. A harrowing, masterful evening.
Until 9 May (0870 060 6632. www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (1)
The intimacy of this startling production works a treat as Matthew Kelly and Tracy Childs give powerhouse performances as George and Martha. Albee's crisp, sardonic dialogue entraps one in its web as the full range of emotions, both sadistic and poignant, are worn explicity on their sleeves. Hall's interesting version adopts a play-within-a-play format, with the guests as an onstage audience. This clarifies George and Martha's relationship but it robs the play of the killer punch that comes when Nick realises that this is not marital hell but a series of s/m games, leading to the devastating finale. Nevertheless, it's beautifully played and the final scene achieves a desperate sadness. Unfortunately, by emphasising the character of George as the dominant force from the outset Martha is overshadowed. At times, it came over as The Matthew Kelly Show and although he gives a bravura performance, he isn't really sinister or macabre enough.
- Dj, London, 17/04/2009 13:11
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