Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Genevieve Lemon and Darren Gilshenan in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (supplied photo by Prudence Upton)

By Elissa Blake

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee’s depiction of marriage as blood sport, has long been associated with dramatic heavy hitters. Uta Hagen starred opposite Arthur Hill in the play’s Broadway debut. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (married at the time) tore strips off each other in Mike Nichols’ 1966 film.

Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara teamed up for the Broadway revival. Diana Rigg and David Suchet wowed the West End in 1996. Steppenwolf Theatre luminaries Amy Morton and Tracy Letts starred in most recent Broadway revival in 2012. In Sydney in 2007, Catherine McClements and Marton Csokas proved a devastating combination at Belvoir.

But the latest production of the play in Sydney, about to open at the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli, is resolutely cast against type, with two of the country’s leading comic actors, Genevieve Lemon and Darren Gilshenan, playing middle aged couple Martha and George.

“The casting process was a gut driven thing but I feel it’s paying off in really interesting ways,” says Iain Sinclair, director of the production. “Darren and Gen know that awfulness is funny and absolutely human. And I think comic actors have more spiritual courage, the courage to go right down to the bottom and keep the audience swimming down with them.”

Lemon’s theatre credits include comedies such as Steaming and The Venetian Twins. She featured in musicals including Billy Elliott and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. She also performed in the Sydney Theatre Company’s evergreen satirical comedy showcase The Wharf Revue.

Gilshenan is best known for his TV comedy work (The Moodys, Chandon Pictures, Full Frontal) and is regarded as one of the country’s most skilled clown-comedians. Writing about Gilshenan’s wordless one-man comedy Fool’s Island, a Herald critic wrote: “I suspect actors such as Gilshenan  … are born, not made. If there are such things as fast-twitch comedy muscles, he’s got them. Everywhere.”

Sinclair’s process has been about challenging what his actors think they already know about the play, Gilshenan says. “Gen and I both hit the floor doing our robust impersonations of George and Martha and straight away Iain said let’s strip all that away. You tend to think George and Martha are nasty, embittered people who scream at each other all night. But the first act is called Fun and Games for a reason. It’s light and enjoyable. The mood is buoyant. It’s only much later you start to get that bad taste in your mouth.”

Albee, who died last year, was a very prescriptive playwright, says Gilshenan. “He is such a control freak. The script is full of adverbs. You are told to speak ‘fiercely’ or ‘aggressively’ or ‘quizzically’. It’s almost as if he doesn’t trust actors or that audiences will get it. But we’ve just pushed all that stuff that out the door. Actors and audiences are a lot more sophisticated than they were back then.”

The snap and crackle of the Burton-Taylor version has cast a long shadow over the play, says Lemon. “Half the audience will bring preconceived notions based on that. But the film is 50 years old now. Maybe it’s time for a remake. We just want to give people a fresh look by just concentrating on the words and applying our various skills to them.

“We’ve had a few barneys over it in rehearsal,” Lemon adds. “But now we’re feeling like we are all on the same page. We want to get it right.”

There’s no danger Virginia Woolf will be played for laughs but audiences might be surprised by how funny the play is, Gilshenan says. “There’s a kind of cumulative humour in the play, something about the rhythm of the piece. I hope its one of those nights where you get to the end of it and realise they have been holding their breath for three hours. It’s a pressure cooker of awesomeness.”

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is playing at the Ensemble Theatre from May 11.

This story was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 16, 2017.

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