Any small theatre company attempting to stage a classic of American Theatre with limited resources and space deserves a pat on the back. When that classic is Albee’s marathon Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, respect needs to be paid. Indeed Piece of Work Productions have overcome all the shortcomings of the venue as a workable theatre space and come up trumps in production values. 

On the whole the production works well and no finer testament is needed than to say than on opening night I was only one of eight adults in the audience that I could count. The rest of the house was jammed with teenagers from the local college. Apart from a reminder or two about them not actually needing a mobile phone during a play, (‘What?’), and the etiquette of not choosing another random seat at each interval, (‘Why not?’), they sat enthralled. You can’t ask more.

The staging is simple and clean (set design is uncredited). Blacks enclose the space and randomly-placed period furniture dictates the confines of the set. Dust, books and alcohol fill the gaps and the tiny Uxbridge space is well utilised.

Director Terry Hooper keeps the three-hour epic on course and the time surprisingly speeds along, never dragging once. The cast of four maintains the pace and Hooper has injected enough movement to keep the evening fluid, matching the dialogue. The obvious positioning of George and Nick facing the audience, though, seems at odds with the naturalism, and more suited to spotlights and monologues. 

While we’re on the subject of niggles, I do get the sense that rehearsals were short, not giving the required time and diligence to examine each and every nuance a play of this magnitude requires. Timing of dialogue, interjections and pauses seem under-rehearsed with the cast at times either fighting to get their lines in or having to repeat dialogue, thus spoiling the flow of the bickering. 

Albee’s script still has a sharp bite to it, it’s bitterness and venom bubbling beneath each line, and at times it feels uncomfortable to be in the same room as these squabbles. Carleena Walsh and Anton Bentley do an admirable job as Martha and George but do tend to place everything on show for us to view. I would have liked more underplay; the cool, calm simmer rather than the full blast of each assault.

Carleena Walsh throws us a menacing Martha, perfectly hitting the highs of drunken tantrums to the lows of heartache and despair. Her final scene is heartbreaking and the scene of the evening. 

Anton Bentley plays George from a slightly more comedic stand-point than I would have expected, a cheeky little school boy that for me would be more at home in a cat and mouse thriller, but still he matches Walsh scene for scene. 

Morgan Bradley delivers a smooth, perfect Honey; a girl of innocence and joy who finds herself drawn into a dark world she has probably only ever viewed in the media. Andrew Gordon plays the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Nick from a defensive point of view, on the attack from the start but again matches the other three perfectly, completing a more than competent cast.

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