The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens the new year with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a landmark of the American stage. Edward Albee’s masterful 3-act play is considered by many to be the playwright’s best work for its unbridled dialogue and stark message that people must learn to live without illusion.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? runs January 25-February 18 at The Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, R.I. Tickets: $55-$65; preview performances (January 25-28) just $38. Information about Friday night pay-what-you-wish tickets, as well as discounts for seniors, students, groups and more at gammtheatre.org/discounts. Tickets: 401-723-4266 or gammtheatre.org/virginia
Steve Kidd, who directed Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children last season at The Gamm, returns to helm this production. Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella and veteran Gamm actor Jeanine Kane (Grace in Faith Healer) are George and Martha, the bitter, aging couple at the center of Albee’s Tony Award-winning play. Gunnar Manchester (Maks in Ironbound) and Gabrielle McCauley (Urzula in Describe the Night) are their young houseguests, unwittingly drawn into a boozy evening of wild barbs and a fracturing marriage.
Kidd called Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “one of the most important American plays of all time because, among other things, it was the first of its kind to make us laugh, cry and question often all at the same time.”
“Our incredible cast and designers are fashioning an experience that brings this singular play of the past to the present with remarkable clarity, hilarity and urgency,” Kidd said. “It is personal, powerful, startlingly current and as shocking as the original production of 1962. To spend an evening with the dysfunctional duo of George and Martha and their guests in the small, intimate space of The Gamm will be a roller-coaster ride through love, loss, belly-laughs, gasps and edge-of-your seat entertainment.”
