Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup (@sohoplace, West End) - ★★★★★ REVIEW

MickeyJoTheatre

Theatre critic Mickey-Jo reviews the West End revival of Edward Albee's *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* at Soho Place, directed by Marianne Elliott and starring Gillian

Key takeaways

• Marianne Elliott stages this West End revival entirely in the round at Soho Place, featuring a circular set designed by Miriam Beuthe that rotates slowly to shift audience perspectives and evoke a dizzying, out-of-control atmosphere.
• Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup deliver standout performances as Martha and George, balancing vicious verbal sparring with underlying passion, dark humor, and a palpable spark of joy in their toxic dynamic.

Main topics

• Theatre review & production analysis
• Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Notable quotes

"I love familiar stories, they're the best."

Conclusion

The episode serves as a comprehensive critical guide to a landmark theatr

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) In the second act of the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee, there comes the line, I love familiar stories, they're the best. As it continues and its leading pair challenge each other over truth or illusion, the play itself grapples with those same ideas, and truth, illusion, and familiarity are all the qualities that a great production of this play ought to deliver. Now, it's a terrific piece of writing, a three-act beast of a play which can be challenging to emotionally wrangle, but which is also often very successful on stage, largely because the writing is so strong and the characters are so forthcoming, and most directors make the savvy decision to get out of the play's way. Though this new production from Marianne Elliott, which opened tonight in the West End, makes more divergent creative choices than most. Ultimately, what it tends to boil down to is the strength of its performances, and this quartet of cast members on stage, but particularly the leading pair, who for the purposes of this brand new production are the stage and screen actors Gillian and Anderson and Billy Crudup. And today I'm going to let you know how their performances and by extension the production itself fared. But just before I do, a quick introduction for those of you who may be meeting me for the first time with this review. Oh my god, hey, welcome to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello to those of you listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Joe and I am obsessed with all things... theatre. Now, I am a professional theatre critic and a content creator, and it is in that capacity that I was invited this evening to attend the opening night performance of this brand new, limited and already sold out production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. And I have been hugely excited about this production, about the notion of this casting combination, but also the return of the play itself to London, one that I have seen now three different times. I saw the Ustinov Studio revival. in Bath with Elizabeth McGovern and Degrace Scott. I also saw the most recent Western revival starring Imelda Staunton and Conleth Hill. And for a time in my teenage years, I ranked the screen adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as one of my all-time favourite films right up there alongside Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. Listen, I'm nothing if not a man of taste. On which note, I am going to let you know exactly what I thought of this revival this evening. We're going to talk about the play itself. For those of you who may not have encountered it previously, we're going to talk about this production and its unique creative choices, and we're also going to talk about these performances. But as always, I'm particularly intrigued to hear what you think. If you have been lucky enough to snag a ticket to this production and have already seen it on stage, let me know all of your thoughts in the comments section down below. And since I'm such a fan of this play, I would also love to hear about any other productions people may have seen previously elsewhere around the world. In the meantime, if you enjoy listening to my review and would like to hear more of them, then you can find so many others wherever you're seeing my face or hearing my voice. And there will also always be many more coming soon. Make sure that you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms so that you stay up to date with everything that I'm sharing online. Another way to do that is to sign up to my free Substack newsletter at the link in the description. For now, though, let me tell you about who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Speaker 1 (3:16) Okay then, let me tell you a little bit about this, one of my favourite plays of all time. One of the great American plays, really, and one that has, since it first premiered, challenged directors to elicit from their actors these extraordinary... combative performances of raw, vulnerable verisimilitude. That being quite possibly one of the greatest metrics for the success of productions of this play, its proximity to a dangerous sense of truth. Now the play begins just a little later into the night than the current time at which I am filming this review, it being around half midnight here right now. It is already after 2am when Martha and George are returning to their home after a university party, a party held for the faculty, celebrating the arrival of new members of the faculty. Martha is the daughter of the university's president. She is also married to George, who works in the history department, and who later shares with their guests, who arrive shortly after they do, that there are easier things in this world than working at a university and being married to the daughter of the president of that university. This in part because George and Martha have this deeply and demonstrably volatile relationship. one in which their respective shortcomings are weaponized by the other and hurled as public degrading insults. As we quickly come to learn in the play whether or not they are entertaining company, they are constantly locked in this battle of wits, as though the relationship of Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedict after a couple of decades of marriage had turned deeply toxic, sparring as they do over initially inane topics like George's ability to recall the name of a particular Bette Davis picture, that his wife is quoting. Subsequently, the challenges that they issue each other, the put downs, the abuse, the degradation, all gets progressively a little closer to home. And George is fatigued to begin with when they return home from this faculty party, but finds himself rising to the challenges issued by his wife wordlessly when she reveals that the night is still young. In fact, there are three acts to go and she has invited to their home a young couple. He is a new member of the biology department. though she gets it wrong and thinks that he's a member of the maths department, joined by his somewhat naive wife. Thus, we have this quartet of characters, the elder couple revealing to the younger the extent to which their relationship has grown warped and they have each become wounded by each other, in contrast with the conservative normalcy that they have invited into their home to bear witness to all of this destruction, though