Review Roundup: WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at Soho Place Theatre

What are critics saying about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

WhatsOnStage

"What a play!"

★★★★★

Reviewer: Sarah Crompton

"In this cockpit-like setting, Anderson’s Martha is a supreme being, conscious both of her own attraction and her own despair. Chin jutting, eyes blazing, it’s a raucous, charismatic performance, full of sharp insight, conveying the great arcs of Martha’s feelings in tight detail. Every fibre of her body is expressive and she notes unusual moments; I’ve never seen so clearly before that it is not George’s novel about his unusual past that embarrassed her, but his failure to be bold enough to publish it. As the night progresses, her growing desolation, her genuine terror at being forced to give up her dream, is deeply moving.

Against this vivid performance, Crudup makes a greyer, gentler foil. He may be mild, but he knows “when I am threatened” and his George gives as good as he gets, both in defence of his own self-worth but also for humanity, and individuality in the great march of conformity that is threatening them both. His performance is naturalistic and wry; he delivers the poetic speeches that define his character almost as asides. His glee when his barbs hit the mark – when he discovers Nick really did marry Honey for her money – his entire face lightens, adding a layer of playfulness to the games he initiates."

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The Telegraph

"Gillian Anderson is a total knock-out in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

★★★★★

Reviewer: Claire Allfree

"Anderson is simply formidable – a swaggering, gin-swilling, sexually brazen, emotionally reckless, barely contained wildcat. Crudup, in a beautifully relaxed, startlingly detailed performance, affects an air of equally devastating insouciance. Their appallingly entertaining, lacerating gameplay lays bare the imprisoning truths of American small-town conservatism – she, trapped by the suffocating conventions of her gender; he, by the impossible expectations put upon his.

Over the course of the next three hours, as the play unfolds in real time, the production deepens and becomes richer. Anderson, in a performance of masterful control, slowly strips herself back to reveal the desolation beneath. Crudup’s superficial affability gradually curdles into a desperate, bleak self-loathing. They emerge less as two irreparably damaged people locked in a marital cage fight than as equal players in a perverse love story. The shared lie at the heart of their marriage (revealed late on) is not so much a suppurating sore as an act of love undertaken by each to protect the other."

Read the review here.

The Independent

"Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup are electric in a play guaranteed to disturb you"

★★★★★

Reviewer: Alice Saville

"Elliott’s production draws detailed, eloquent performances from all four of her actors, but sometimes the best moments are when language breaks down completely. As Honey, Horn has a bright emotional volatility that's a refreshing contrast to the long-brewed inner torments on display here. “Violence!” she exclaims, flapping her hands like a delighted toddler, when Martha and George finally swap verbal blows for physical ones. Crudup’s erudition collapses into a long, gravelly, growl when George is finally beaten at his own game.

Albee’s play is many things. It's a study of how long marriages create their own dysfunctional languages, a kind of ugly verbal scaffolding around a bond that collapsed long ago. It’s an exploration of how pain can be exorcised through shared ritual, performed before baffled onlookers. It’s a warning about the dangers of consuming neat spirits, especially with your work colleagues. What it isn’t is hopeful, particularly. Still, there’s something unexpectedly cathartic about Elliott's production – Crudup rises up off the round stage between acts, like he's ascending beyond these earthly torments. Sharing your pain might be excruciating, but it’s the only way out."

Read the review here.

Photo by Johan Persson

London Box Office

"Edward Albee’s seminal work still carries such reputational heft"

★★★★

Reviewer: Stuart King

"It’s inevitable that any attempt to mount a production of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF will draw comparisons with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s 1966 movie. Here, instead of attempting to emulate that landmark powerhouse of caustic rage, director Marianne Elliott has taken a lighter approach with her actors, resulting in a softer and oft-comedic end result. When the shock moments land however, they remind us why Edward Albee’s seminal work still carries such reputational heft.

A feast of caustic barbs delivered with wry humour and sexual tension, this production takes a gentler approach to the internecine excoriation inherent in Albee’s text. While the end result is gentler than the battling titans of the film, it is none the less effective and perhaps more redolent of our touchy-feely times."

Read the review here.

The Stage

“Vicious repartee absolutely crackles”

★★★★

Reviewer: Dave Fargnoli

"Anderson’s Martha is brilliantly crude, wielding her power like a sledgehammer, whether relentlessly haranguing or crudely flirting. She spits and snarls in a broad New England accent, and crawls around the stage in drunken despair. At her most vulnerable, she becomes a point of stillness, voice dropping away to a husky, pleading whisper, tears glinting in her eyes.

As her equal and opposite George, Crudup initially appears entirely ineffectual, squirmingly uncomfortable in his own skin. Slowly, he reveals a sly, incisive power, his surgically precise verbal eviscerations breaking down everyone around him. But there is as much playfulness as cruelty in his manipulations, at least early on, and a clear sense that both George and Martha understand, consent to, and in some perverse sense enjoy the hurt that they inflict on themselves and each other."

Read the review here.

The Guardian

"Gillian Anderson fights tooth and nail in marital meltdown"

★★★

Reviewer: Arifa Akbar

"Anderson makes a formidably angry Martha as she needles away, poking George in every place it hurts. She is all hard edges and armour, agitating for a fight from the off, with a big, dirty laugh and a bawdy flirtation with Nick. Crudup is put-upon, dusty, literally all (in) grey. He initially leads with passive aggression, mansplaining Martha’s behaviour to the room and batting off her barbs with intellectual superiority or sarcasm, before entering into more confrontational territory.

It ends in hand-to-hand combat but before that, laughter is eked out of the first act, which emanates a deliberately upbeat lightening of tone. George and Martha have more than a touch of George and Mildred, their game-playing a little cartoonish at times."

Read the review here.

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Tickets