Tonight it was my privilege to watch the great actors Imelda Staunton and Conleth Hill take their first stab at performing Edward Albee's masterpiece of marital disfunction , WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF in front of a London audience.
It was what the industry describe as a preview performance meaning that it's not considered fully formed as a production yet and the cast and creative team are trying things out in front of an audience to smooth out the rough edges before the critics see it and pass judgement. It's not good form to review one of these try-out performances whilst the production is still developing so I'm going to keep things vague.
The first thing to note is that if you haven't booked yet you can do so safe in the knowledge that it's as good as one might expect from the theatrically mouth watering combination of those two actors in that play.
Like all great plays it can stand a variety of interpretations and tonight I witnessed something I could never have imagined working, succeeding triumphantly with devastating impact.
At the heart of the play are two stonking lead parts for star actors at the top of their game. George, a washed up, beaten down failure of a history lecturer and his raucous, foul mouthed wife, Martha, the daughter of the university's head, invite a young teacher and his wife, who have just joined the faculty, around for late night drinks. As the alcohol flows and they slip into that emotional no-mans land that happens after 2am and before dawn the younger couple become unwilling props, ammunition and then collateral as the older couple emotional rip each other to pieces. It's a three hour brutal, often hilarious, ultimately horrifying battle of wits.
Depending on the dynamic between the actors in some productions it feels like George is the central character in others Martha, sometimes it's perfectly balanced as in the superlative film starring real life husband and wife Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
If you've never seen the play or film, I envy you because you've got an extraordinary experience to come. The play is always powerful but never more so then on first viewing when you don't know what's going to happen next. There are some devastating twists and turns that'll take your breath away.
So if you're new to it book before it sells out.
If your an aficionado you should also book because there's a new slant on the marriage from hell that you won't have seen before or imagined and which will absolutely mark this out as a revelatory production.
On this site, a year or so ago 