Braying and baiting, Emma Messenger is appropriately terrifying as Martha, a force of nature as the unfulfilled wife of a college history professor in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
Messenger zings the famous insults, purrs the come-ons and is by turns formidable and pathetic. Her riveting performance in the brilliant Albee play is worth the three-and-a-half-hour running time (with two intermissions) at the Edge Theatre.
When she barks “snap!” you imagine her breaking her husband’s bones along with his spirit.
The 1962 Albee classic is the study of a spiteful marriage. Two well-matched enemies, George and Martha, receive late-night guests, the young couple Nick and Honey, after a faculty get-together at her father’s house at their small New England college. Booze flows along with secrets and humiliations at the after-party from hell.
The language is less shocking now, but the themes retain the power to stun. The play won the Tony in 1962 but was deprived the Pulitzer Prize for drama, despite a nomination, when the award’s advisory board from Columbia University overruled the selection because of the play’s profanity and sexual themes. (No drama Pulitzer was awarded that year.)
The times have caught up with Albee, but the cruelties inflicted within this unhappy marriage remain shocking.
Messenger, winner of the 2015 Henry Award for outstanding actress (“Night, Mother”), is a marvel, but the entire cast delivers. Scott Bellot as George is a suitable mix of beaten down and authoritative. Maggy Stacy as Honey, while without much dialogue, telegraphs credible mood swings on the couch, swilling brandy as she goes from tipsy to drunk to revulsed, devolving from pleasantly unaware to shuddering with recognition. And James O’Hagan Murphy slowly reveals his character Nick to be more than the stud he’s characterized as, building confidence, then self-destructing.
Whether cooing or blaring, Messenger nails Martha, the dissatisfied middle-aged wife with daddy issues, whose favorite form of entertainment is emotionally destroying her partner. The play’s famous party games, “Get the Guests” and “Hump the Hostess,” are given energetic life under the direction of Rick Yaconis.
The bar holds a central position in George and Martha’s perfectly drab living room. A door, a sofa, a couple of chairs. … It’s all we need. On this all-American battlefield, the words cut through the decades, still packing a punch.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ostrowdp
“WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?” By Edward Albee. Directed by Rick Yaconis. With Emma Messenger, Scott Bellot, James O’Hagan Murphy and Maggy Stacy. Through Aug. 16 at The Edge Theater, 1560 Teller Street, Lakewood. Tickets 303-232-0363 or online at theedgetheater.com
