Revelatory take on the play.

[AC126748]

Oh, how I'd love to see Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines sink thier teeth into Martha and George!

Lupone was one of the many actresses considered for the last revival of WOOLF (her ex-boyfriend Mr. Kline was also considered as a possible George for that production). I agree that she would be magnificent, provided she stay away from some of her more self-indulgent tendencies.

I was there last night. I doubt I'll see a better production of the play in my lifetime...and this is coming from someone who, as I said, saw the last revival three times.

[somethingwicked]

AC, I don't know where you heard that LuPone or any other actresses were considered for the last revival, but that's not true at all. In fact, Kathleen Turner is the only reason the last revival even happened.

Turner's agents had inquired about the possibility of her doing VIRGINIA WOOLF in New York, but it has been done so often that they were told Edward Albee was not interested in having it revived again at the time. Turner wanted to play Martha so badly that she took Liz McCann (Albee's longtime producer) out to dinner and convinced McCann to talk Albee into allowing her to organize a reading. She thought that, if he heard her read the play out loud, he'd give his blessing toward a full production. McCann was able to talk Albee into it, but he made it very clear he still wasn't interested in having the play done again on Broadway because he didn't want it to be the only thing people associated him with from within his body of work.

Turner went ahead and organized the reading herself, which Albee attended. As she tells it, after they took a break upon finishing the first act, Albee walked over it to her and said, "Wherever you want to do this, we need to do this- and we still have two acts to go!"

[AC126748]

From a New York Times article that coincided with the opening of the last revival:

Mr. Albee said that at least six well-known actresses had read for him in the last six years and that several others, who did not read, were discussed. Jessica Lange, Mercedes Ruehl, Christine Lahti, Kate Nelligan, Frances McDormand, Judith Ivey, Stockard Channing, Patti LuPone and Bette Midler are among the names in one or the other category.

Whether she actually read for Albee or if she was just discussed I'm not sure.

[somethingwicked]

What Albee is talking about (I think) is that various productions had been discussed with those various actors over the years, but that specific production that ended up on Broadway was initiated by Turner.

She tells the story in this video, starting at 36 minutes in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rDBQoAQ1Y

[AC126748]

The article suggests that the revival was in the works (with McCann producing) long before Turner became involved, but that Turner was the first Martha prospect that really clicked for Albee (who had final say over casting). I'm having trouble linking to it, but I will try later.
I remember when I first moved to New York, there was a lot of talk that a revival starring Ruehl and Bill Pullman was in the works. This was after they had done THE GOAT together, and Ruehl had just done WOOLF at the Guthrie (opposite Patrick Stewart as George) the year before.

[somethingwicked]

I guess we'll never know without asking Albee himself, but Turner says very directly in that video that McCann told her Albee was retisant toward having the play revived on Broadway at all because he didn't want it to be the only play of his people identified him with, which is a very different thing than waiting for the right actor to come along.

At the time that revival happened, as Turner also says, Albee was particularly focused on generating new work. I would venture to guess that the problems his new plays have had in recent years have made him much more open to revisiting his older stuff, which is probably why we're seeing this Letts/Morton revival in New York so soon after the Turner/Irwin production. I'd have been curious to see that John Lithgow/Glenda Jackson production, which featured Cynthia Nixon as Honey.

I wonder if we'll ever see LAYING AN EGG, the new play of Albee's that was announced for the innagural season at Signature's new space last year and then pulled because it wasn't ready. I expected it'd be in their season this year, but it has mysteriously yet to be rescheduled (Michael Reidel ran an article about how Jim Houghton commited to doing it there initially without even reading it.)

[egghumor]

AC, it's great to read your strong endorsement of this production -- knowing how much you love the play. WOOLF is one of my all-time favorite plays; a seminal work in my developing love of theater in the 1960s. I'm a huge fan of A DELICATE BALANCE (the film version with Hepburn and Scofield is amazing) and great many of Albee's plays. I wish there would be a high-profile, regional (or New York) production of ALL OVER at some point in the near future.

[jv92]

I happen to love A DELICATE BALANCE as well. I had never seen a production of THE LADY FROM DUBUQUE until last spring's revival, and I now cite it in my top 3 Albee, over ...BALANCE unfortunately. THE GOAT (OR WHO IS SYLVIA?) will always remain my favorite. A very unsettling, but funny play.

Can't wait to see this new production of ...VIRGINIA WOOLF? in a few short weeks!

[broadwaybelter]

I sincerely hope LAYING AN EGG surfaces. I was making plans to come see it, until it was later scrapped.

[walkedthroughmany]

How was Carrie Coon as Honey?

She is fantastic. And Sandy Dennis gave one of my favorite film performances of all time in the movie, so I had a lot of expectations.

[jv92]

broadwaybelter, I'm surprised it hasn't surfaced yet. I've always thought Albee was fast to write things down-- though the plays gestate in his head for years. Maybe in 2013?

[JordanHaliday]

who cares if it gets boring ! You get see an award winning play writer act very rare these days to have someone that can do both. Tracey and Amy must get tony nominations. I have not seen the play but knowing what they can do they will

[broadwaybelter]

" A play called Laying an Egg, about a ­middle-aged woman’s attempts to conceive a child, was scheduled for a run at the Signature earlier this year but withdrawn as unready. It is now, he says, nine-tenths finished; he would like to see it produced, “and possibly have it partially understood,” in 2013 or 2014".

Oh, good!


Albee Interivew

[abstract19]

Any news on if posters are available?

[ZiggyCringe]

abstract, I was at the show tonight, there won't be posters available until next week. There are T-shirts, one with the logo, one that says "Get the Guests". (Apparantley, the "Get the Guests" is outselling the logo T-shirt 3-1.)

I loved this production. More than that, the audience I was sitting with at the Booth barely took a breath during this show.

After reading much about this production (Amy Morton is underplaying Martha, Tracy Letts is a revelation, etc.) it was fascinating to see.

All four of those actors were sensational. Usually, this show belongs to Martha. Then during the Bill Irwin/Kathleen Turner version it belonged to Bill Irwin. The word is that this production belongs to Tracy Letts.

Wrong. This production belongs to all four of them. They all are equally terrific. They all underplay mostly, and then go balls out when need be. When Letts looks at Nick and says "Houseboy or Stud?" It works on every level. When Honey does her "Violence! Violence!" utterance, it's a revelation. Morton, at the top of the third act, with her "Clink" monologue, is a revelation. When Martha is egging George on, she slips in "Am I making you angry yet?" in the best way.

The best I can explain it was that it was a Tennis Match. Every single actor lobbed that ball near the line, but nobody dropped the ball. For 3 hours 15 minutes.

Really, go see it. It's terrific.

[ajh]

ZiggyCringe: thanks for posting this; seeing it next week and your description sounds like just what I want out of WAOVW. I saw the Turner/Irwin production and loved it; this sounds even better. *excited*

[cannison101]

Has anyone seen this through TDF? Where were your seats located?

[Auggie27]

I just returned from the production, and I was blown away by how freshly minted the play feels in this telling. Almost from the start, the George and Martha dynamic has been freshly explored. It's not so much rethought as newly grounded, to my thinking freed rather than restricted by a more naturalistic style. Unlike some posters, I found nothing lacking in Morton's handling of the text; if anything, her precision with the verbiage is especially rewarding in a more conversational style. And if some of the early comedy is less italicized, the payoff begins by the middle of the first act. This is a woman grappling with her own plight, and everything in her behavior here feels motivated.

For the first time, I saw Martha and Honey almost from a (pre-) feminist perspective, both women at sea in a white male world, without adequate opportunity or familial/societal support. Both women are children of indifferent ego-maniacal tyrants, a faux religious conman and a narcissistic college president. (Tellingly, the faculty seems to be entirely male; even in 1962, this is an extreme, patriarchal world.) Honey retreats into fantasy and subservience to Nick's ambition, looking the other way as her husband makes a bald play for career enhancement in a narrow, cut-throat academic climate; Martha, asserting her intellect whenever she can decidedly "wears the pants" and of course takes them off in her play for temporary supremacy if never anything close to personal power.

Both female characters broke my heart in mysterious new ways this afternoon. Martha's loss at the end, charted by the slow reveal by Morton of a well of accumulated grief, an incremental unloading of repressed sorrow the likes of which I've never seen in the role, is absolute and
devastating.

This production may be the "George version," and Letts's brilliant George is persuasively a driving force, especially in the play's enhanced (by cuts) act two. But it's those two women, unmoored, adrift, emptied, that left a lingering impression.



SPOILER

Albee's decision to make two critical cuts, one, the "...don't start in on the bit..." admonition to Martha, as she exits with Honey, radically alters the stakes in the reveal of the son to Honey. In this 2005 revision, the missing warning makes it clear the son is never discussed with others. The glib threat in the previous version never quite tracked, and if they otherwise dropped the son in conversation, why did Martha say "I always wanted to bring him up.." (or the equiv.) in act 3? By removing the warning, the moment when George learns the son has been mentioned is far more devastating.

[JeanGudio]

I smell tonys

[ColorTheHours048]

Saw this production the other day and I was sincerely blown away. It's been my favorite play for years, hands down. Until now, I've never had the privilege of seeing it live, though I've seen the Burton/Taylor film countless times as well as a bootleg of the Irwin/Turner revival. Nothing compares to experiencing this monumental piece of theatre live.

Clocking in at just over 3 hours, it's a LOT to take in, no matter how much you love the play. It does get a bit draggy, only really during the lengthy monologues, but the overall payoff of the play is more than enough to counteract it. And those four actors... good lord. Every single one of them deserves the Tony, to be honest, as well as for Ms. MacKinnon. It's a remarkably fresh production, shedding some pretty chilly new light on the text. (There was a palpable hush in the audience after George and Martha's "Hello, love/Hello, darling" exchange early on in the first scene that sent chills down my spine.)

This definitely ranks as one of my absolute best theatergoing experiences in New York. Instead of putting the play on a pedestal, it plays like something brand new. The shock and force of Albee's masterpiece is very much alive in this production and it shouldn't be missed by anyone.

[ljay889]

I haven't been paying attention. Has anyone rushed this yet?

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Ljay, just for your avatar: :)

I rushed it today...easiest rush in the world. I got there right before the box office opened, and there were maybe ten people in line ahead of me.

The production is a stunner. This is one of my favorite shows and this production, as others have said, has breathed a fresh, urgent life into it. These four actors and Ms. McKinnon have seemingly deconstructed and reconstructed the work in a way that makes it feel completely new. The four performances are all tour de force portrayals, particularly Letts, who makes sure his George does not get swallowed alive, or tossed to the background by Martha. Not to say that Morton isn't an excellent Martha, because she is. The final few moments of this play are directed and performed to absolute perfection here. It really plays like a straight jab to the gut and even after the lights come up, you are still sort of reeling from the power of it all. This is a definite must-see for any true theater lover. I saw GRACE this weekend as well, and liked it enough, but VIRGINIA WOOLF almost felt shorter than GRACE, because it's just that damn good. GRACE runs about 95 minutes. VIRGINIA WOOLF runs nearly 200.

[little_sally]

Saw the play this afternoon (via TDF, and for anyone wondering, our seats were mezz B 2-4) and it was actually my first exposure to it. That being said, I think this is an incredibly strong production with some sublime acting. I knew Morton was going to be fantastic (she was the draw for me actually) but I was blown away by Letts.

[GlindatheGood22]

Caught the matinee today, it's very much the Tracy Letts show. I've never seen anything but the movie. I didn't realize how much more he has to do than Martha. There are oceans of time when she's offstage. Anyway, thought the whole production was wonderful, especially Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon.

[SonofRobbieJ]

We all apparently saw this this past weekend! I was there yesterday, too.

What an extraordinary 3 hours and 10 minutes. I haven't seen this level of acting in quite some time. Letts and Morton are harrowing. And you buy every friggin second. Coons and Dirks were just about perfect as the guests who were to be gotten.

[GlindatheGood22]

Nominations for all?