By Kineta Kelsall
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?”
The Sheffield University Theatre Company performed this famous and shocking black comedy based on Edward Albee’s scandalous 1966 play on Thursday 13th March.
The plot focuses on two couples who are having a small party and playing games. The actors and actresses of the drama department performed a very clever insight into the Aristotelian theatre and drama. The play involves the two couples playing “games,” which are savage verbal attacks against one or two of the others at the party. These games are referred to with sarcastically alliterative names: “Humiliate the Host”, “Get the Guests”, “Hump the Hostess”, and “Bringing Up Baby.”
The cast did a fantastic job of portraying the characters in the way Edward Albee would have wished them to be played. The effectiveness of the sarcastic imitations of each other, the constant bickering and clever wittiness was not lost throughout the play.
‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ is a gripping play with meanings beyond normal theatre. It must have been very hard to understand and pick up the idiosyncrasies of the characters. There has to be some excellent role playing to involve yourself with the character. All four actors maintained an extremely high level of performance and adapted to their characters and scenes effectively; especially with the manic change in personalities. Well done, a thrilling play to watch, the audience were capsulated by the acting.
