They’re Not Afraid of ‘Virginia Woolf’

Friends ask actress Ellen Crawford and her husband, actor Michael Genovese, how they can play the roles of the venomous George and Martha in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” without wanting to kill each other.

Crawford just smiles every time she’s asked that question. “We have said it’s like having really good sex,” says Crawford, who appears on NBC’s top-rated dramatic series, “ER,” as nurse Lydia Wright. “The exhilaration--both physically and emotionally ... and we get to surprise each other every night. This play takes you places. It’s all within the framework of the play. When it’s working right, it’s very alive.”

“There are a couple of places in the play where I have no idea why they take me, but they take me somewhere,” says Genovese, who also happens to play Wright’s husband, police Sgt. Al Grabowsky, on “ER.” “But I am not afraid to go there.”

The couple, who will celebrate their 20th anniversary this fall, are relaxing on the tiny stage of the Blank Theatre Company’s intimate 2nd Stage Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. On this afternoon, the two are about to begin rehearsals for “Virginia Woolf,” which was scheduled to open Saturday for a monthlong engagement. This production was originally staged last fall at the San Diego Repertory Theatre with Crawford and Genovese. Todd Salovey, who directed in San Diego, is returning.

This production marks the 40th anniversary of the Tony Award-winning play, which has not been performed in a regular engagement in Los Angeles since Albee directed John Lithgow and Glenda Jackson in 1989 at the Doolittle Theatre.

Crawford explains that Albee is very protective about the rights to “Virginia Woolf.” “He has to personally approve all the casting in every production,” she says.

“Albee wants the words said the way he’s written them in the order he’s written them--that is part of the contract,” Genovese says.

“You cannot cut it, you cannot change anything,” adds Crawford.

“There have been attempts to do it with four men,” continues Genovese. “He said he wrote this about two heterosexual couples: ‘If I wanted to write about four men, I would have written about four men.’ ”

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” takes place over one nightmarish night when an embittered history professor, George, and Martha, his acerbic wife of 23 years who happens to be the daughter of the university’s president, invite new faculty member Nick, an ambitious young man, and his simpering wife, Honey, over for drinks. Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill starred in the original Broadway production. Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor (who won an Oscar), George Segal and Sandy Dennis (also an Oscar winner) starred in Mike Nichols’ classic 1966 film version.

More often than not, Crawford says, a playwright’s stage directions don’t give much insight into a character. That’s not the case with Albee. “It’s like following a map,” she says. “There are plenty of chances to go many ways. But sometimes, because of his stage directions, he takes you in a direction I might not have thought of and will lead me to the next point in the play. I really have been appreciative of those. He thinks musically when he writes.”

Doing the play has been a longtime passion for Crawford. Genovese, though, wasn’t originally scheduled to perform in San Diego, but two weeks into rehearsals, the original George got hurt and left the production. Reviews for their performances were glowing. “Genovese and Crawford are a joy to watch,” said Jim Trageser in the San Diego Press-Enterprise. “It’s like listening to two veteran jazz musicians trade solos back and forth. Their timing and interplay are right on target.”

“Crawford ... shows enormous range as the fearsome and vulgar first lady of the stage, Martha,” said Pam Kragen in the North County Times. “And Genovese, with his staccato, monotone delivery and haunted eyes, inhabits the withered, gone-to-seed shell of George, whose only satisfaction in life is cruelly taunting his wife and visitors and drinking himself into a stupor.”

When asked if she had performed in the play before last year, Crawford hangs down her head in embarrassment and gives a glance over to her husband. “Can I tell her?” she asks Genovese. “I don’t want to get Edward Albee mad.”

“Sure you can,” he says with a smile.

“My very first professional job when I was 18 was ‘Hair,’ the Chicago production,” Crawford says. “There were some of us who basically wanted to be actors and weren’t necessarily rock musicians who loved this play.”

So one Saturday evening, after completing 6 and 10 p.m. shows of “Hair,” the group gathered at co-star Joe Mantegna’s apartment. In front of friends and family, they performed “Virginia Woolf” in Mantegna’s living room.

“We did the play essentially in the hours it takes place,” Crawford says. “We maybe started at 1:30 in the morning. I threw up on cue! Andre De Shields was Martha, but we called him Marty.”

Genovese also has an affinity for Albee. “Back when I was going to college during the Punic Wars,” he says laughing, “it was the heyday of the Absurdists. I had done two productions of Albee’s ‘Zoo Story’ and directed a production of ‘American Dream’ when I was in college [at Eastern Illinois University], Ellen had done ‘The Sandbox’ and ‘American Dream.’ ”

He relishes the rhythms of Albee’s dialogue in ‘Virginia Woolf.” “They crackle and pop,” he says. “When you get them right, they sort of bounce and you have an audience out there responding.”

Although the two have done their fair share of television and movies, they both consider themselves theater animals. Because of his wife’s stint on “ER” for the past nine seasons, Genovese has been able to concentrate primarily on theater. It’s been hard on Crawford, though, when her husband’s work takes him out of town.

“In the last half-dozen years, I have been doing less TV,” he says. “I have been going out of town a lot--San Diego, Berkeley and Denver. I did an ‘Uncle Vanya.’ I did a ‘Death of a Salesman.’ I did ‘Tartuffe’ and ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid’ at La Jolla.”

While “Virginia Woolf” is in production, Crawford will be shooting “ER”--Genovese, who was recurring on “ER,” hasn’t appeared on the series in a few seasons. The show’s producers have always been good about allowing their actors time off for other projects. Crawford also won’t have problems because “ER” star Noah Wyle is artistic producer of the Blank Theatre.

When “ER” started, Crawford says, executive producer John Wells told her, “ ‘If you want to do a film or another show or a play, there will always be room for you here.’ That’s a nice situation. People can only improve their work by taking on projects.”

When the couple first moved out to Los Angeles in the ‘80s, they rarely worked together. “He was doing a lot of TV and film,” Crawford says. “I would never be cast opposite him because he was always being cast as the bad boy boyfriend of the hot young leading lady. I am a character actress. As he went more into character roles, producers decided we could play off of each other.”

Crawford and Genovese first met in the 1970s at the Arena Stage in Washington. “I was living with a woman, and Ellen was doing a show with the woman I was living with,” he says. Over the decade, they kept running into each other doing regional theater gigs.

Finally, in 1977, they became a couple after they were cast together in a production of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times.”

Ironically, the two had been warned by friends 25 years ago that they would have a difficult time working together.

Crawford recalls: “They told him, ‘She went to Carnegie-Mellon University. She’s classically trained. She’s very specific. She’ll make you crazy because she’ll want everything a certain way.’ ”

Friends told her that Genovese was a “wild” actor. “He is scary,” she says. “But what happened is that we discovered that we had a great time working together because he encouraged in me a sense of freedom and probably I brought some sort of specificity. The marriage of the two--even before the marriage--was really magical, I thought.”

Crawford shoots her husband a loving glance. “I agree,” he tells her with a warm, knowing smile.

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Susan King is a Times staff writer.

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“WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?,” Blank Theatre Company at 2nd Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Dates: Thursdays-Saturdays,

8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 22. Price: $25. Phone: (323) 661-9827.