The title is the feminist corruption of the children’s song regarding the big bad wolf: With the play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” In 1962, the American playwright Edward Albee wrote the most exciting gender battle in modern theater history. She’s unforgettable thanks to the colorful contributors to the 1966 film version, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The private marital hell, including alcohol addiction, worked on the set as a fire accelerator, so that the film couple Martha and George tortured themselves to the death in a nightly showdown in front of the guests.
On Saturday, Bettina Riebesel and René Schwittay as Martha and George in the riding hall of the Hans Otto Theater delivered with all their might the timeless struggle for relationships in the bourgeois world of illusion in the USA as a wicked pleasure.
Revelation of the most intimate longings
Martha and George are a well-to-do, middle-aged couple of professors who, despite their beautiful facade, are anything but happy with each other. When the two of them come home one evening a little tipsy, Martha has invited guests once morest her husband’s will: the young biologist Nick and his wife, known as “Sweetie”. The explosive foundation for the evening has been laid, because the guest couple’s relationship is not as unencumbered as it first seems. Fueled by alcohol, the four of them reveal their most intimate desires and lies in life over the course of the night. A relentless marital war begins, in which everyone involved will soon stop at nothing.
Moritz Peters, who is no stranger to the Hans Otto Theater as a director, staged the drama largely with brutal severity. In a minimalist and uncomfortable-looking domesticity of Martha and George, which is more reminiscent of a bar (set design: Juan León), the couples collide like ice cubes in their drink glasses. First it crunches, then it cracks. With each new crack that opens up, the hollow relationships become visible, in which Martha and George’s story of the son who doesn’t even exist plays a role.
Strong cast
The look into the abysses of the human soul is deep. Albee’s play is often seen as an entertaining show tournament that provokes the funny bone. Moritz Peters has staged the highly explosive atmosphere in Martha and George’s house as a chamber play in which the laughter, which is also there, gets stuck in your throat. Finally, in a touchingly still scene, the couple lay down their battle of words weapons and discover that they are bound in love.
Bettina Riebesel plays Martha in a self-confident and dominant manner. In her sprawling red robe, she appears like a queen, underscoring the character’s madness (costumes: Arianna Fantin). Her lack of control, her hunger for love, her flirtation with Nick, her transparent pathos and finally her loneliness are portrayed by Bettina Riebesel as great opera divas. In the almost sad finale, she becomes a vulnerable, normally ticking woman.
René Schwittay as her cynical intellectual opponent George – an arrogant historian and a rampant rabble – also dominates the scene with confidence. Nadine Nollau as “Sweetie” and Jan Hallmann as Nick are in no way inferior to the two main opponents in terms of the intensity of the game, and the rather helpless nature of their characters is well captured. The audience deservedly gave the performers a warm welcome.
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