Ensemble Theatre Rave Reviews!

Rave Reviews!

“Priceless!…Ensemble Theatre is a sturdy testament
to what a small professional theatre can accomplish!”
– Tony Brown, Plain Dealer

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" Review

Thursday October 2, 2008 Sun Newspapers.

I enjoyed and admired the show very much. You and the entire production should be proud.

Ted Larsen

When Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” premiered in 1962, the Pulitzer Prize committee was20torn between their admiration for the depth of the script and their shock at the coarse intensity of it. Eventually, half the committee resigned in protest, and no Pulitzer was awarded that year. Now that over 40 years have passed, when done well the play still contains the same capacity to enlighten, enrage, and enrapture. Ensemble Theatre’s production, currently performing at The Cleveland Play House, is done brilliantly well, generating the scorched-earth ferocity Albee intended and embodying the challenge and glory that live theatre only rarely achieves.

A middle-aged married couple – he an associate history professor, she the daughter of the University president – George and Martha are in the middle of a vitriolic battle of wits. Fueled by alcohol and the rawness brought on by the late hour, they verbally and caustically flay each other. It is obvious this is not their first battle; and equally obvious is that they are irresistibly drawn to the battle itself. When Nick and Honey arrive for a nightcap, they, too, are drawn into the fireworks. By the end of the evening, there remains not so much a reach for human friendship as a search for s urvivors. As the lies and games engulf them, emotions run raw and truth becomes a casualty.

Albee loves words, and there is beautiful rhythm twisting and furling through the dialogue. He presents a series of duets – mini-battles between different combatants – like jazz themes played against an ever-evolving backdrop; each duet holding the spotlight before passing the theme to the next players. This is not a pleasant evening spent among pleasant friends. Rather, it is a gauntlet-run through razors and acid, and not for the faint of heart. It is also a fascinating and ultimately enriching exploration of the human condition, of the necessity to balance truth and illusion, and of the vagaries and inexplicability of the relationships that bind us and support us.

The performances are uniformly excellent. The actors display great understanding and respect for the depth of the language, the wordplay and double-meanings. Carol Petroski and Robert Hawkes create full-blown characters in Martha and George. Petroski9 9s abrupt and frightening mood changes are disconcerting at first, but as we learn how many-faceted is Martha, they are part and parcel of her deeply conflicted personality. Hawkes’s George appears mild-mannered and unprepossessing as the evening begins, but he soon reveals a cruelty far more gutting than Martha’s. Her knives cut a wide swath; his cut closer and infinitely deeper. It is an excellent and admirably facile performance. As Nick and Honey, Sebastian Hawkes Orr and Ursula Cataan are equal to the force generated by George and Martha, and their body language as they are both repelled and fascinated by the war games is superb. The audience’s discomfort is embodied by them, until Nick and Honey become willing and energetic participants themselves.

Licia Colombi’s direction is assured and brave, not the least so in choosing to present this work in its full 3-hour length. She uses the intimacy of the studio theatre and Martin Cosentino's wonderful utilitarian set to great effect, leaving the wounds exposed on all sides, giving the players nowhere safe to turn. There is a slowness to the early pacing,=2 0but by the time Nick and Honey arrive, the words are bullets, and the show has the necessary machine-gun timing.

This is an important production of an important play, and a tribute to Ensemble Theatre’s season celebrating American masters. The show performs at The Cleveland Play House, 8500 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, and continues through October 5. Call (216) 321-293 for more information.