I'm in training for the LOTR musical!

I went to the TKTS line in New York on Friday in the blazing heat and sun and thankfully most of the tourists were absent, the smarter ones staying cool in the Hershey Times Square store or Virgin Megastore. I was able to quickly score a ticket for Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Longacre Theatre on 48th.

The play stars Bill Irwin (who won a Tony for leading actor in a play) as George; Kathleen Turner (who was nominated for a Tony for leading actress in a play) as Martha; Mireille Enos as Honey; and David Harbour as Nick.

This was my first play that had three Acts with two 12-minute intermissions! Act 1 is "Fun and Games", Act 2 is "Walpurgisnacht" and Act 3 is "The Exorcism".

Wow was it ever long -- it started at 8 pm and ended at 11 pm (way past my bedtime...). I kept myself alert and awake by changing seats after each intermission until the last hour found me in the Second Mezzanine with a handful of other people (it was cooler up there for some reason) with my legs comfortably draped over the empty chair in front of me. Those New York theaters are a bit hard on long-legged knob-kneed gals like me!

Don't get me wrong -- I loved it! The whole cast was great. My favorite was Bill Irwin -- he has such great body language that he uses to define a character, and so many levels of intensity -- you are always working to see if he is being jolly, sarcastic, furious or whatever, as you would if you were meeting someone for the first time, as his guests in the play were. My second fav was Mireille Enos. Honey is the smallest role as the somewhat proper wife of Nick, who gets drunk on Brandy and spends a fair bit of time vomiting in the bathroom. My guess is it's a hard role to play (doing drunk realistically is never easy) and make an impression amidst Irwin and Turner, but she did.

Kathleen Turner was great, a real powerhouse. But I found she sort of blustered through at one level of intensity.

Although the play is long, it doesn't feel draggy. There is a lot of repetition in Albee's dialogue but it doesn't feel repetitive. Instead, it feels natural, the way people would actually talk to one another. Especially between the the old married couple George and Martha.

In the Playbill programme, Bill Irwin describes it this way:

Edward Albee is an alchemist. If his scripts were to show up without his name on them at a regional theatre, the dramaturg would probably say, "This is a talented guy, but we've got to get him to cut back." He repeats himself. But an alchemic magic happens. You feel it onstage. There's mundane back and forth language, and then it will elevate -- and then suddenly some storytelling revelation has taken place.

If you get the chance, go see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf -- soon.

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