Paul Gross and Martha Burns star in the Canadian Stage production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, at the Bluma Appel Theatre, in Toronto.Dahlia Katz/Bluma Appel Theatre
- Title: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- Written by: Edward Albee
- Director: Brendan Healy
- Actors: Paul Gross, Martha Burns, Hailey Gillis, Rylan Wilkie
- Company: Canadian Stage
- Venue: Bluma Appel Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: To Feb. 16, 2025
“Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.,” quips How I Met Your Mother’s Ted Mosby time and again over the course of the TV sitcom’s nine seasons. Inevitably, warns Ted, an innocently raucous night out will devolve into madness when the clock strikes two.
That’s pretty good life advice, and in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, now playing in an acerbic production at the Bluma Appel Theatre, the pitch-black hours of the wee morning are a breeding ground for debauchery and scorn. Canadian Stage artistic director Brendan Healy helms an aggressive Woolf, with two magnificent performances that gleam at its centre, but the production hits a fever pitch and stays there, making for a final act that’s nearly as punishing as the social gathering it portrays.
When we meet George and Martha (played by real-life power couple Paul Gross and Martha Burns), they’ve just returned home from a faculty soiree at the university where George teaches (and where Martha’s father is the president). Already, the duo is drunk, but they have guests on the way, and so they drink even more, pouring each other brandies and bourbons from a small bar cart.
Soon enough, Nick and Honey (Rylan Wilkie and Hailey Gillis on opening night) arrive, and at once, it’s clear these couples have little in common – Honey has the demeanour of a hummingbird, all nerves and high-pitched giggles that jam against Martha’s bawdy swagger. Nick’s stoic professionalism similarly rubs against George’s meandering sense of humour, and more than once the late-night pleasantries dissolve into awkward silences.
But that’s nothing a little alcohol can’t fix.
Edward Albee’s portrait of mid-century hedonism – and squeamishness – is a classic for good reason, with richly conceived characters and dialogue that crackles with verve. Gross and Burns sparkle in their respective roles, their chemistry obvious and yet packed with nuance. When George and Martha jab each other with increasingly cruel insults, the jokes cut through to the bone.
Rylan Wilkie and Hailey Gillis do relatively well in their roles as foils to Burns and Gross.Dahlia Katz/Bluma Appel Theatre
Gillis and Wilkie do relatively well in their roles as foils to Burns and Gross, especially considering that Wilkie joined the production only recently as a last-minute replacement for Mac Fyfe. Wilkie, script-in-hand on opening night, aptly captures the pinched repression of Nick’s darker side, and Gillis is frequently funny as the frenetic and fragile Honey.
Healy commands a ferocious Woolf for its first two hours, but after the second interval, it’s hard not to feel like the production has run its course. The third act ought to be one of devastation – lives have been ruined by George and Martha’s sadistic mind games – and some of Albee’s most interesting ruminations on love happen in these final breaths of his epic. But under Healy’s direction, the third act feels one-note and gristly, a re-hashing of familiar ideas that dampens the greatness that came before.
Julie Fox’s set design adds an appropriately grimy film to Albee’s world of privileged academia, with walls that seem to rot in real time and a dimpled array of mirrors that adds to the feeling of decay. A turntable centre stage renders George and Martha’s living room a merry-go-round of marital hell – it’s a nifty bit of symbolism that helps keep Woolf’s visual world alive.
At the top of the third act of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Martha contemplates the difference between one’s potential versus their performance – the gap between who someone could be versus who they actually are. That line of thinking feels particularly relevant here, in a production whose marketing leaned hard on the real-life couples in its cast. That marketed production – which could still happen, as Fyfe may yet return before the show closes – had lots of potential that here feels overshadowed by an unfinished final act.
This Virginia Woolf has sharp claws that, with more run-throughs, might scratch at the pervasive itch of human connection and what it means to be married. But for now, this production feels muzzled by its marketing, with Albee’s big ideas left spinning centre stage.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)