Who's Afraid of 'Virginia Woolf'? Not Steppenwolf

Ever since its 1962 Broadway premiere at the Billy Rose Theatre, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has earned a reputation as one of modern American theater's most revered and challenging works. Tracing the story of long-married New England couple George and Martha's "night cap"-turned-domestic duel, Virginia is a play that depicts some of the lowest points of intimacy between two people.

As they've grown older together, George and Martha have memorized each others' ins and outs, knowing exactly which battles to forge and when -- the ensuing verbal chaos has often left audiences of the Tony-winning work, which was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1966, at once spellbound and horrified. The play is a dream role for any stage actress of a certain age and the incredible source material has not lost any of its stature in the decades that have passed since it was written.
In a new production, directed by the Albee buff, Obie Award-winning New York-based director Pam MacKinnon has reinvigorated the 48-year-old source material in a truly enthralling production starring a deeply moving cast currently playing on the Steppenwolf stage in Chicago. The play will continue its run with a sister production at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage this spring.

Taking a moment between previews and the show's press opening, EDGE spoke with MacKinnon about her experience at the helm of the Albee classic, one of the year's most anticipated productions on Chicago's theater scene.

In a new production, directed by the Albee buff, Obie Award-winning New York-based director Pam MacKinnon has reinvigorated the 48-year-old source material in a truly enthralling production starring a deeply moving cast currently playing on the Steppenwolf stage in Chicago. The play will continue its run with a sister production at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage this spring.

Taking a moment between previews and the show's press opening, EDGE spoke with MacKinnon about her experience at the helm of the Albee classic, one of the year's most anticipated productions on Chicago's theater scene.

A different perspective

EDGE: You've directed several Edward Albee works before, but never this show before. Do you recall your reaction upon first reading it? How has your perspective on it changed since then?

Pam MacKinnon: I guess I probably read it as a kid, and that was a very sort of voyeuristic, "Oh my God, this is what adults do in the wee hours of the night" kind of experience. As I've gotten older, it's definitely, I think, an amazing play about marriage. I'm really struck by both the, at times, withering laceration. We think of this play as a "George and Martha: The battle to the death" kind of thing, but I'm also kind of struck with the incredible bond between George and Martha. It's a 23 year marriage and there's a great deal of love between them as well.

EDGE: So tell me what attracted you to working on this production now - at this place and this time.

PM: There's something very exciting about experiencing and working on the breadth of an artist's work and Virginia is definitely a cornerstone piece in Edward's writing. You almost feel as someone who's directed a lot of his plays that you can't really call yourself an Albee director until you've tackled [this show]. As for working in Chicago with Steppenwolf, what's so exciting is working with Amy Morton and Tracy Letts. It's very indicative of the Chicago scene to be working with actors who have really dedicated themselves to the stage and have known each other, in this case, for a couple of decades. To work on a very intimate marriage play with actors who have worked a lot together and grown up together, in a sense, on stage is very exciting. There's already a shorthand between them.

Knowing Albee

EDGE: For how long had you thought of Amy and Tracy as your Martha and George in this production?

PM: Early on. The production started out being planned to be done at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., who approached Edward and I about doing 'Virginia Woolf.' In that moment, I thought of Amy Morton, an actress I've seen on stage and thought would make a good Martha. That got back to [Steppenwolf artistic director] Martha Lavey and we started to talk about the possibility of this production originating at Steppenwolf and she then suggested Tracy, who has played George once before in a show Amy directed six or seven years ago in Atlanta. That was the genesis of the show.

EDGE: How did you come to know Edward Albee? What has it been like to interact with him on the shows of his you've directed through the years?

PM: I met him almost 10 years ago and I was slated to direct the then new production of his play 'Play About the Baby.' My agent at the time worked for a large agency, Williams Morris, and he knew Edward and set up a lunch between us. We got together and spoke about his play. Yes, it was meeting Edward Albee, at this point, bar none, the greatest American living playwright, but it was also very much just talking about a specific project, the way a director and writer should meet. He's a very at once serious person and believes in taking a vested interest and responsibility for his productions and likes to be involved.

EDGE: What is it that you admire about Edward Albee as a playwright?

PM: His tenaciousness - he's been doing this a very long time - and his commitment to the endeavor of theater. He's never wavered from that and he, like I think all artists do, has a number of very close-to-the-bone themes he's interested in exploring. He also really challenges an audience, but in a way that is also imminently entertaining.

Coming to an Albee play, you know you'll be in really good hands. You know there are going to be some genuine laughs and he will also hold up the mirror to the audience and make you question some of your beliefs. He definitely writes very three-dimensional, flawed people who are going through extreme situations and there's a real muscularity and expertise in his writing that is very rewarding and fulfilling to the audiences who witness it.

EDGE: The theme of the season at Steppenwolf is looking at the dichotomy between one's public and private self. How do you think that theme is evident in this show?

PM: Those kinds of themes for seasons are a little bit more about marketing as opposed to what we tackle in the rehearsal hall, and you can almost say that's addressed in any play, but definitely over the course of the evening, with the other couple - Nick and Honey - there's a public veneer of this up-and-coming successful young man and his young wife. They're on a track to be successful together and over the course of the evening, you see that these people do not have that successful relationship, so that definitely brings that up.

Also, you can track that theme with George and Martha as well. You ask who are these people to each other. Martha, at the top of the third act, sort of punishes Nick for only dealing with appearances, and to assume George is completely ineffectual and not worthy of Martha is wrong. She says to Nick that George is the only man who's ever made her happy.

EDGE: What are some of the biggest challenges you've had to overcome in this production?

PM: It's a three-act play, in and of itself, and you don't get to work on those very often. They're big both in terms of length, but also as a big, emotional play and in terms of the endurance and fortitude it takes to build the mountain and also climb it is tremendous. We used to witness and work on three-act plays a lot but people don't write that anymore and our collective attention span has perhaps diminished. There's a lot of work that goes into keeping that ball in the air and making sure these games they play are at once very clear and accumulate in an emotionally interesting and deep way. It's a real rehearsal and performing challenge and some of it can boil down to endurance.

EDGE: Do you have any exchanges of dialogue or actions from the show that have emerged as favorite moments for you in the show?

PM: I don't know, I think with Edward's work, people take away what they sort of reflect onto it. I think that's different for everyone and there's something interesting as we've begun performances that different audiences will hear different things and respond differently. I think that's actually pretty rewarding as a director. This is one of those plays, maybe in part due to the movie that Mike Nichols directed, that people think they know and have certain expectations coming in that are sordid at times. But there are some great lines, some fantastically funny and caustic and touching moments in the play. As far as favorites, I can't say.

EDGE: In a recent interview you sat in on with Edward Albee, he said that he hoped audiences would come away from the show "willing to reconsider whether all the values that they brought into the theater are still valid." Do you share that hope for your audiences?

PM: Definitely. That's Edward's project and that becomes my project when I work on one of his plays. He writes about people who, I think, aren't that far away from the people in the audience and even though they might at first want to distance themselves from them, we can ultimately see pieces of ourselves in them.

A big theme to this play is the danger of living with your illusions to the point where it infects your reality and gets in the way of living a life that's truly examined. Hopefully the audience gets little hints of that even if it's maybe not as extreme as what George and Martha are portraying. Hopefully you sort of leave the theater somewhat changed or with a question mark over your head, which I think is a good thing.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? plays Steppenwolf Theater, 1650 N. Halsted, through Feb. 13 before continuing its run at the Arena Stage's new Mead Center for American Theater in Washington, D.C., Feb. 25-April 10. Visit www.steppenwolf.org for tickets or more information on the production.