Associated Press/Steven
`Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' will make its return to Broadway stamng•Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin
Broadway play revives
an old theater classic
By Michael Kuchwara
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW YORK (AP) Broad
way hasn't seen the play in
years, but there's one word its
author refuses to use in describ
ing the new production of Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
revival.
"A revival means that some
thing was dead," says Edward
Albee, and Virginia Woolf, with
its fierce tale of marital discorli,
always has been very much alive
ever since it first shook up
Broadway in 1962.
The play is continually on
stage around the world, and, of
course, there's the celebrated
movie version that starred El' a
beth Taylor and Richard Burton
(Albee says he wanted Bette
Davis and James Mason for the
film) as the New England col
lege professor and his boozy, bel
ligerent wife.
And, now, it has reappeared in
New York at the Longacre The
atre with Bill Irwin and Kath
leen Turner playing the combat
ive George and Martha
Albee credits Elizabeth
McCann, his affectionately
described "lunatic producer"
with wanting to bring Virginia
Woolf back to Broadway after an
absence of nearly three decades.
That journey has lasted more
than five years.
"We started thinking about
certain actors and.votresses,"
"We started thinking about certain actors and
actresses. And it's taken all this time to get
the ideal cast together."
the playwright recalled. "And it's
taken all this time to get the
ideal cast together."
To find the right George and
Martha, as well Nick and Honey,
the young twosome who stumble
into the older couple's alcohol
fueled nightmare, Albee and
McCann held a series of read
ings with various actors just
to see how they worked with
each other.
"Oh, I don't want to mention read the play in college when
any names," Albee said diplo- she was about 20 and thought,
matically, but he called those "Well, when lam 50, I will do it,"
readings absolutely essential. she recalled. "And the week I
"You can have two wonderful turned 50, [the producers] said,
actors and if they are not good 'Yes,' which kind of spooks me.
together, it wouldn't be right," he "Martha is a pagan and a
said. "I guess since Liz woman with few boundaries. I
[McCann] kept telling me it was think it's a question of trying to
a very important new produc- ... overcome some of my early
tion, I was even stricter than I diplomatic training to behave
usually am." and be a good woman. I losing
Out of that process came all inhibitions now. [Martha] is
Turner, who has worked her way out there, you know"
through such stage roles as Turner finds in Martha a
Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof haunting sense of failure, a fail
and Mrs. Robinson in The Grad- ure of self and of what she
uate, and Bill Irwin, a veteran of expected from her husband.
Albee's last Broadway play, The "This woman of intelligence and
Goat, and whom Albee had seen energy was unable to fulfill her
An plays by Samuel Beckett* and • 'own ambitions,r shesaid.• .
Edward Albee
many of the performer's own
clown pieces.
"I love the contrast between
the two of them," Albee said.
"Kathleen is loud and forceful.
Bill is quiet. He works intellectu
ally rather than emotionally."
And ask the actors where they
went to find their characters and
the low-key Irwin says simply,
"Text. I . only have text."
Turner expounds. The actress
Study Abroad
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An Evening of SWING
1111 / Saturday, March 19, at 7:00 p.m.
Swing into the 1920 s and 1930 s with a
performance by the Dan Yoder Quartet
and the exhibition American Prints from
the 1920 s and 19305. Sponsored by the
Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art
PENNSTATE with support from Avant Garden and
Wegmans.
Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and
College of Arts and the diversity of its workforce. Produced by the Penn State Department
Architecture of University Publications. U.Ed. ARC 05-238
next Spring! •
4..• FREE Admission
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