Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff

The Hastings Podcast

Hugo Trebels directs Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff at The Stables Theatre from October 28th to November 5th and he plans that it will be a very special production of this iconic and Tony award-winner!History professor George and his boozy wife, Martha return late one Saturday night from a cocktail party at the home of the college president. Martha announces that she invited another couple Nick and his wife, Honey, over for a nightcap.The play is set on the campus of a small, New England university. It opens with George and Martha, coming home from a party at her father’s house. The two of them clearly care deeply for each other, but events have turned their marriage into a nasty battle between two disenchanted, cynical enemies. Even though the pair arrives home at two o’clock in the morning, they are expecting guests; the new math professor and his wife.Of course, as it turns out, this new, young professor, Nick, actually works in the biology department. He and his wife, Honey, walk into a brutal social situation. In the first act, “Fun and Games,” Martha and George try to fight and humiliate each other in new, inventive ways. As they peel away each other’s pretences and self-respect, George and Martha use Nick and Honey as pawns, transforming their guests into an audience to witness humiliation, into levers for creating jealousy, and into a means for expressing their own sides of their mutual story. In the second act, “Walpurgisnacht,” these games get even nastier. The evening turns into a nightmare. George and Martha even attack Honey and Nick, attempting to force them into revealing their dirty secrets and their true selves. Finally, in the last act, “The Exorcism,” everyone’s secrets have been revealed and purged. Honey and Nick go home, leaving Martha and George to try to rebuild their shattered relationship.

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