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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf Holden Street Theatres 2025Holden Street Theatre Inc. 7 Aug 2025

 

Peter Goers’ production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a powerhouse three act domestic drama. It seems like an allegory for the end of the world and humanities deepest inner hopes expressed in a marriage going super nova.

 

Tempered with ever so soft humour one wonders at how it’s even possible wicked laughs are very successfully summoned from the psychologically savage games ruling the marriage of middle-aged academic Associate Professor of History George (Brant Eustice) and wife Martha (Martha Lott.)

 

George and Martha stagger home from a college party with too many under the belt, baiting each other. Until Martha announces at the late hour of two am they have guests arriving soon.

The young, newly appointed College academic, Nick, and his wife who Martha’s Father, President of the College, has suggested they be nice to.

 

George and Martha initially clean up their act—so much as they can—when Nick (Chris Asimos) and Honey (Jessica Corrie) finally arrive.

Doesn’t last long. They have set themselves to a switch and bait on each other, spiralling into a night long nightmarish emotional bender. Seeking to control, dominate, conquer and vanquish each other.

 

When that doesn’t quite work out, in the way each seeks, Nick and Honey are new targets. Unwitting pawns in a gripping, shocking all out vicious domestic. Let’s all have another drink as games of political history, science, social politics and sex play out until dawn.

 

What is it all about, this nasty shit fight between a sotted, educated couple who probably should be divorced? Whose whiplash tongues, rich in barbarity, cultured awareness, emotional heat and heightened cunning, seem to have no end game in the play between them?

The personal is absolutely the political this night. Saving position. Taking a stand. Stealing another. Beating down to dominate a marriage. There’s more.

 

Albee’s writing is dense, rich in violent histrionics, and sharp symbolism. His characters stand at the extremes of modern life as experienced by the very young and suspiciously hopeful as much the aged, jaded and cynical in a status driven world. One in which emotional honesty is a distinct disadvantage. True life is dangerous. Better the illusions. Illusions are also very, very dangerous. Because of the truth they may obfuscate?

 

Goers has ensured this cast have totally mastered every beat of the text. Emotional timing and text delivery is richly, exquisitely electrifyingly in gripping the audience by its throat. Brant Eustice and Martha Lott deploy breath taking powers of controlled, rage, passion, vulnerability and contempt in bringing Martha and George’s regal, yet depleted relationship to life. Chris Asimos and Jessica Corrie partner them in a display of meekness attempting greatness, or in Honey’s case, absolute capitulation to forces they cannot master.

 

Here is a messy, gritty psychological drama still relevant as ever over 50 years later in the

hands of artists who understand how true its simple (hidden) pain and broader scope is right now.

 

David O’Brien

 

When: 5 to 16 Aug

Where: Holden Street Theatres

Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com