Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Faces West End Critics

The Anthony Page-directed revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, earned great acclaim during its run on the Great White Way last season. Now the production, which also features Mireille Enos and David Harbour, has hit the West End's Apollo Theatre, where it opened on January 31. What did London critics think of this mounting of the American classic? Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Benedict Nightingale of The London Times: "Anthony Page's revival was a huge success with the same cast on Broadway and one sees why. The games of Humiliate the Host, mostly consisting of Martha's reviling of George as a lifeless blank, and of Get the Guests, in which a passive aggressive George betrays the pathetic secrets at the frail heart of Nick and Honey's marriage, can seldom have proved so gripping or darkly funny. But as the alcohol flows and the ugliness intensifies, the production deepens, and nowhere more than when Turner is giving her emotional all. She certainly has the brazen power and contemptuous command. Her voice sounds as if she's been to the Elaine Stritch Voice School and the style matches the sound."

Nicholas de Jongh of The Evening Standard: "The production conveys the attraction of people who know how to wound with words. Its only weaknesses are David Harbour's nerdish Nick, who lacks the necessary sexual charisma and swagger and the George of Bill Irwin, which despite his mood of desiccated desolation needs sometimes to fire on all emotional cylinders. The lethally effective, mesmerising Miss Turner, a butch, boozy broad in a middle-age spread of malice, and a tight blouse, does her sadistic bit with all the lazy, nonchalance of a maid swatting flies. Meanwhile Irwin's much cleverer, mild-mannered George maintains a stiff upper lip as the best of masochists prefer to."

Charles Spencer of The Telegraph: "It is hard to imagine this Strindbergian dance of death being more thrillingly played than it is in Anthony Page's knockout production, a big hit on Broadway that has come to the West End with its outstanding American cast intact. Kathleen Turner is sensational as the alcoholic Martha - vulgar, gravel-voiced, and clearly getting the most tremendous kick out of humiliating her husband… Bill Irwin's George, all meek, mild, grey and quietly spoken, seems defeated before the games of the night have even begun. But appearances could not be more deceptive. His barbs are lethal, his aim unerringly true... The production beautifully judges the moment when savage fun and games give way to a great ache of tenderness and grief in the last act, and the brutal comedy is miraculously transformed into something tragic, tentatively hopeful and hauntingly beautiful."

Michael Billington of The Guardian: "The excellence of this production lies in two things. First it shows that there are no games without pain. George and Martha may delight in their booze-fuelled battles and their ritual of Getting The Guests. But gradually we realise that their blood-soaked bitchfests are a device to hide real wounds… Page's production is also fully alert to the play's larger themes. This is not just a play about marital warfare: it is Albee's state of the union message about the American tendency to prefer fantasy to reality… Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is irresistibly fine."

Paul Taylor of The Independent: "In Page's deeply satisfying revival, it's the peculiar chemistry of the casting that ensures that this Woolf has freshly sharpened, murderous fangs. Nothing could be further from the brawling gelded bruiser seen in Richard Burton's film performance than Bill Irwin's almost daintily deadly George, the stalled associate history professor and boss's son-in-law. A blowzy, campily knowing Earth-Mother-cum-man-eater, Turner's magnificent Martha certainly seems to wear the pants in this relationship and with her carnivorously convivial smile and husky, booming baritone, she's the dominant presence. But the production sharply underlines how the ultimate power lies with her spouse."