Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Denied the Pulitzer Prize when it bowed in 1962 because of its “vulgarity” and sexual frankness, famed probably for most because of the film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and almost overwhelming in its swiftly changing moods, Virginia Woolf asks a lot of the VT cast and of the audience as well. (And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that with two intermissions it’s more than three hours long). But while it’s occasionally exhausting, the Venice Theatre production is also rewarding.

From the moment you enter the theater you’re enveloped in the surround of the home of university professor George and wife Martha (Murray and Lori Chase), surely one of the most famous couples in contemporary theater. Set designer Kirk Hughes has used every wall of the in-the-round setting to hold books, lamps, glasses and bric-a-brac from the couple’s lives, putting us squarely in their living room as they battle it out in front of the younger couple (Doug Landin and Molly Healy) they’ve invited over for drinks following a party hosted by the university president, Martha’s father.