So you think that intimacy in marriage is about supporting your partner, emotional safety, mutual empathy, tenderness, the ability to reconnect after conflict, snuggles even? Take a look, then, at George and Martha in Edward Albee’s now-classic 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, now be ing presented by Frederick’s Ardeo Theatre. George (Aaron Angello) and Martha (Gillian Shelly) are deeply, irremediably, bound to one another. This is not a couple that could ever slip into divorce through quiet quitting and indifference. The nature of their powerful emotional intimacy is that of nature red in tooth and claw. They know each other inside and out. Both severely wounded, they revel in exposing and rubbing salt into each other’s wounds.  Gillian Shelly as Martha, Steven Todd Smith as Nick, and Maureen O’Neal as Honey in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ Photo by @michaelmasonstudios. Words are their weapons of choice, and what amazing, fluent, clever, cruelly witty words Albee gives them. Practically swimming in alcohol — they consume a heroic amount during the several hours of their late-night combat — they use sarcasm, insult, and any other verbal thrust and parry at their command to gain an advantage over their intimate enemy. They are in no mood to take prisoners, though; in truth, they have an occasional stray moment of gentleness. As critic Charles Isherwood wrote, the proper approach to witnessing their battle is to “tuck away the delicate china, remove breakables from exposed surfaces, lock up the liquor cabinet and fling open your doors to these two majestic monsters.” George and Martha live in an academic environment, which is almost a character in itself. She is the daughter of the university president. George, a mere associate professor, can never measure up to “Daddy,” and Martha never lets him forget it. Martha is a force of nature, whose overwhelming life force is channeled into rage by disappointment and drink. Until the final scenes, George is in a mostly defensive posture, albeit an active one, in which, as a keen observer of others’ weaknesses, he gives as good as he gets. And creatively cruel creatures that they are, George and Martha love games: “Humiliate the Host,” “Get the Guests,” “Hump the Hostess.” They act as ritual substitutes for real human contact, part of the fear of reality that runs, and ruins, their lives. As in any war, there is collateral damage. In this case, a younger faculty couple — Nick (Steven Todd Smith) and Honey (Maureen O’Neal) — find themselves in the crossfire. Although less experienced in the ways of manipulation, they are not innocents, and they join the alcoholic haze of the evening. Honey, “mousey” as George calls her, who hurried Nick into marriage after a false pregnancy, is often infantile in her response to stress. Vomiting and lying on the bathroom floor are her exit ramps from strife. Nick, whose attraction to Honey’s father’s money George quickly susses out, envisions taking over the Biology Department as George was unable to do for the History Department. His ambition seems a factor, in addition the opportunity to further stomp on George’s ego, that fuels Martha’s desire to seduce him. Gillian Shelly as Martha, Steven Todd Smith as Nick, Maureen O’Neal as Honey, and Aaron Angello as George in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ Photo by @michaelmasonstudios. This is above all an actors’ play, and the level of acting in the production does full justice to Albee’s words and characters. So strong and subtle and well-timed are particularly the leads’ performances that it is impossible to take one’s eyes off them. Double forte/piano, crescendo/decrescendo, presto/andante, due observation of rests: musical terms seem best equipped to describe the actors’ mastery of the flow of Albee’s wonderful words.  There are several passages where characters’ lines overlap one another, done with exactness and to great effect, a natural part of their tumultuous conversation. My favorite such moment was when, in the final act, George’s recitation of words from the Latin Requiem Mass quietly underscores Martha’s fantastical tale of her son’s life. Under Suzanne Beal’s expert direction, the three-act, three-hour production never lags or misses a beat. Angello designed the set, a realistic middle-class mid-century living room, complete with the mandatory open bar. A nice touch on the set was the suggestion of soot above the fireplace opening, which, like the somewhat scattered books on the bookshelves felt like a small reflection of the disorder in the characters’ lives. Olivia Pietanza’s props were an important feature of the production, not only the drinks and glasses and photos on the mantle, but George’s umbrella gun and his projectile snapdragons as well.  Between Martha’s seduction of Nick and the altercations between George and Martha, intimacy coordinator Julie Herber and Angello created a good physical counterpoint to the verbal fireworks of the play. The lighting design (Rook Bartlett) was subtle, never better than in the final act when the lights gently go down on Martha as she begins her monologue about her imaginary son and during the play’s final lines, when the last quiet moment between George and Martha is isolated in soft light on the upstage staircase.  Albee commented that the point of the play was to ask who’s afraid of living without illusions, facing the big bad wolf of reality. Truth and illusion are a major theme of the play, putting me in mind of themes throughout the work of Tennessee Williams. Think of the desperately clung-to, but ultimately futile, illusions of Amanda Wingfield and Blanche DuBois (Albee even puts a brief quote from Streetcar into the Virginia Woolf script). Even more, think of the destructive role of “mendacity” in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. When George — in part out of vengeance, but also in part recognizing the need to live without the central mendacity of his life with Martha — takes the initiative to blow up the central illusion of their marriage, it offers at least the possibility of a bit of grace. Martha — affirming that she is afraid of Virginia Woolf, rightly frightened of living without the comfort of illusion — at least does not turn her back on the possibility. Running Time: Three hours, including two intermissions. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf plays through June 1, 2026, presented by Ardeo Theatre performing in the Tatem Arts Center Black Box at Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available online or at the door.  ...read more read less