Review: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ****

It seemed a little unfair to Sian Thomas that she had to go on stage the night Elizabeth Taylor died and play a role for which the late dame won an Oscar. In the event it made the shrill performance of Thomas seem even less nuanced in this Edward Albee masterpiece. Without the context of Taylor’s performance in the movie version of this play hanging over the production quite so starkly, Thomas’ own portrayal might not have seemed so one note.

Fortunately for the audience, the cast around Thomas are astounding. This clean and simple production is stunning and Albee’s exploration of damaged humans retains an impressive power almost 50 years after it was first written. Albee’s 1962 masterpiece is set in a single room – the New England college lodgings of Martha and George – although it’s not so much a room as a cauldron in which the heat is inexorably and disastrously turned up over the course of the play.

Martha (Thomas) and George, a history professor at the college, return home from a party to await the arrival of the young biology professor Nick and his mousy wife Honey. Even though it’s 2am Martha and George hit the bottle and await their guests. There is no early warning sign that the term “guests” could easily be substituted for “victims”.

Almost immediately Nick enters this boxing ring of a home, he realises he and his wife should have stayed well away. What follows is a stripping back of four humans until their insides appear to be exposed on stage. The production’s three acts run at around an hour each and it is never less than riveting. The time doesn’t fly by, but not once will you check your watch.

Director Erica Whyman has produced a brilliantly detailed examination of Albee’s script in which nothing is wasted – when George tricks Nick into sitting down by pretending he is about to do so himself and then remains standing is one of a host of nuanced moments Whyman has discovered that add to what Albee’s words tell us about the power relationships in this room. As Nick, John Hopkins is strong giving a great portrayal of a mouse that understands, and can do little about its position, in a cat and mouse game.

As George Jasper Britton gives one of the most wonderful performances you might see in this play. Britton doesn’t simply play the part, he is the part. He is the rumpled professor who is clawing and fighting his way out of each corner he finds himself boxed into. He is the lightweight determined to have one last shot at being a prize fighter, he is entirely engrossing.

A brilliant production – how amazing it could have been if the actress playing Martha could have matched the brilliance of the actor playing George.

To April 7.