WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

About the show

Albee’s classic slugfest is, at least on the surface, an ode to the heartbreak of middle age, a vicious dissection of a marriage straining under the cumulative rage and disappointments of many years. When it burst on to the stage in 1962 it tapped into a growing unease about notions of decency and respectability, with a brutality and sustained menace that tore through the anxieties of the age. The play’s ritualised deconstruction of marriage, gender, sexuality and ambition still ring true to this day. Yet, Albee’s characters also tell a love story: a story of shared acceptance of an inescapable fate. The inertia and grotesque irony of Martha and George’s romance is served up to their unwitting guests as a taste of the humiliations and the inevitable compromises to come.