BC Players Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Community theatre and high drama are not something most people would put together.  Most view them as mutually exclusive. 

The are in their 79th season, and not only are they putting on high drama, but they are putting it on with impressive skill and professionalism.

was written by Edward Albee in the early 1960’s.  It won both the Tony Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1963.  The play was made into a film, also written by Edward Albee, and was a major vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor.

The title, for those unfamiliar, can be misleading.  Author Virginia Woolf is in no part of the show, save name only.  But the title is repeating in song all throughout the show, the result of a ‘joke’ oft mentioned by the characters.

Broken into three acts, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? features only four characters and a single set, the living room of a house on the campus of a small New England college.  The three acts, entitled Fun and Games, Walpurgisnacht (from the German meaning ‘Witch’s Night’, a ritual gathering of witches), and Exorcism.  The action happens beginning at 2am, and involves a great deal of alcohol.

Following a faculty party, George and Martha entertain guests Honey and Nick.  George is a history professor, while Martha is the daughter of the college president.  Nick is a new professor of Biology, Honey his wife.

The drama that unfolds over the course of the next three acts is psychological, intense, and sometimes quite funny.  There is a certain schadenfreude in watching these characters build one another up and tear one another apart in a complex serious of games, stilted conversations and ever increasing alcohol consumption. 

George, played by John Ade, seems to have a certain inner strength, clear intellect, but no backbone.  Martha, played by Victoria Steele, is wickedly manipulative, wanton, and yet demurring.  Nick, played by Matt Rofofsky, has a certain naïve charm, but also a firm desire to advance in his new role.  Honey, played by Allyson Stevenson, is a rather delicate, out-of-place an unwitting participant in the twisted games played often all around her.

The actors were magnificent in portraying these complex characters.  All of them portrayed drunk, yet intelligent and complex people with a flair that was rather breathtaking.  John Ade brought George to life with his body language, change of accent and tone, and making him both sympathetic and demonic.  Victoria Steele made Martha an incredible mix of drunken disorder and calculated convolution, yet maintained a certain vulnerability. 

Allyson Steele’s Honey was an outstanding blend of poor-little-rich girl, naïve waif and delicate flower with just a touch of fire.  And Matt Rofofsky, who was not the original actor character Nick, stepped in to his first serious role as Nick with a sense of tough, up-and-coming go-getter, alternating between anger, distaste, and drunkenness flowing through the performance.

Very few community theatre companies would be able to handle such a complex show.  But director Jacqueline McElroy-Poquette and the rest of the cast and crew have created an excellent piece of theatre.  This is a dramatic performance that should not be missed.

The Bergen County Player’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is playing at the Little Firehouse Theatre on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm through November 12th.