Games people play

Edward Albee’s 1962 classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened at Canadian Stage on Thursday evening in a production directed by Brendan Healy.  It’s a long (not far short of 3.5 hours with two short intervals) and complex play; heavily dependent on quick-fire dialogue and with occasional outbreaks of absurdism.  An older academic couple invite the “new man” and his wife back for drinks after a faculty party at a small New England college.  George, a historian of modest distinction, is married to Martha, the daughter of the college president.  The newcomers are Nick, a biologist, and his wife Honey.

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