STAGE REVIEW : Flaws the Take Teeth Out of ‘Virginia Woolf’

Any production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” usually clocks in at three hours even when the pace is brisk and the mordant humor is allowed to zip along.

But if the pulsating wisecracks of Edward Albee’s corrosive marital epic are turned into mere recriminations and buried beneath a portentous tone, as they are in the current revival by the Vanguard Theatre Ensemble, those three hours can seem like an eternity.

The tip-off that we’re in for a very long evening is the symphonic music chosen by director Terry Gunkel to underscore the mood before each of the three acts begins. I’m not sure whose music it is. But it is serious--not to say solemn--stuff, tantamount to a declaration of reverence for the stormy drama we are about to behold.

And when Martha (Laurel Kelsh), the bitchy central figure of the play, makes her entrance at the top of the first act without even a flounce of her hips in what is supposed to be a campy imitation of Bette Davis declaring “What a dump!” you know for certain that somebody has missed the point.

This is not to say the Vanguard revival lacks ambition. It is, in fact, a victim of trying to do too much with too little. Kelsh is miscast, for starters. She might well be a decent actress in a different role. But here she fails to dominate as the embittered, middle-aged wife of an ineffectual history professor who believes herself to have fallen from a great height.

The play is set on the campus of a small New England college, at the home she shares with husband George (David Kinwald) in a childless, alcoholic marriage. It is long past midnight. They’ve come back, boozy as usual, from a faculty party. Despite the late hour, Martha has invited a young couple new to the faculty over for a nightcap.

Instead of playing Martha with the bilious grandeur appropriate to a nasty drunkard excessively proud of being the college president’s daughter, Kelsh gives the impression of a waitress devoured by migraine headaches who has moved up in the world from a job at an all-night diner.

As a result, George not only becomes the dominant figure in the play, which clearly is not what Albee intended, but also more aggressive and mean-spirited than Martha. This drains our sympathy for him altogether. Kinwald is sufficiently animated an actor to hold our attention but never achieves the pathos that makes George worth understanding.

Meanwhile, the in-the-round presentation adds an unnecessary burden to the staging. It’s hard enough for this amateur production to get one side right, let alone four. There’s no entertainment value in watching a play from behind or from a sideways angle.

‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’

Laurel Kelsh: Martha

David Kinwald: George

Tom Valinote: Nick

Elizabeth Swenson: Honey

A Vanguard Theatre Ensemble production of the play by Edward Albee. Directed by Terry Gunkel. Executive producer: Kevin Aratari. Stage manager: Jeff Rochford. Technical director: Robby Robertson. Lighting technicians: Stephen R. Ohab, Jr. and Kristina Leach. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. through July 25 at 699-A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. $10 to $14. (714) 526-8007.