‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ in the Brumder Mansion

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It would have been spring of 1968 when playwright Edward Albee, then 40 years old, spoke at my college in De Pere, Wis., stumping for antiwar Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. As president of the St. Norbert’s College Players, I was invited to a small after-party with faculty and administration. I sat on the floor at Albee’s feet, in love and speechless.

Afterwards, I couldn’t sleep. When dawn broke, I walked five miles to his motel to see him off to the airport, surprising him. I asked him if he thought I should quit school then and there and move to New York to learn his new kind of theater. He was gentle. “Finish college,” he told me, “then decide. If you come, look me up, and I’ll help.”

Albee’s great first full-length play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which premiered in 1961, had already changed my life. My friends and I would read it aloud, trading roles with no thought to gender, laughing like crazy and marveling. Was any play as funny, as shocking, as subversive and as haunting? Albee’s early plays were my first taste of a fledgling American avant-garde. I didn’t want to do traditional theater anymore, I wanted to do that.

Actually, I doubt that any theater artist of my generation escaped his influence. His plays had an international impact; they’re embedded in the fabric of Western culture now. Mike Nichols’ film of Virginia Woolf, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, certainly played a role in that, but it’s just one interpretation, and it can’t match the experience of seeing George and Martha and Honey and Nick play their life-changing games live.

In Milwaukee Entertainment Group’s new production of Virginia Woolf, opening Friday, Oct. 18, in the beautiful Brumder Mansion’s small basement theater, you’ll be within arms’ reach.

A Play With ‘Great Staying Power Because It Has a Lot to Say’

The director, Mark Neufang, 30 years my junior, also discovered the play in college. “I was an actor in high school,” he tells me, “and it was an actor’s dream. The roles are so complex and so thoroughly fleshed out, so deeply psychological and very daunting in many regards. The complexities of the relationship between George and Martha are something to dig into and question. What exactly is going on here? I’ve seen a couple of productions, including the Broadway revival and the national touring production, and each time it’s fresh, even though I know it so well.

 “I think that, when he wrote it, there were many changing attitudes in the country,” Neufang continues. “There were a lot of expectations regarding marriage and children that were products of the 1950s: Husband goes to work, wife stays home, has kids, they have this happy family. Albee smashed that whole concept. That’s why the play was so controversial in its time. It was up for the Pulitzer Prize in drama briefly, then they snatched it away, because they thought it wasn’t the right play to give an award to. They didn’t even give an award at all that year. And it’s had this great staying power because it has a lot to say. There’s the ‘truth-versus-illusion’ theme and the ‘American Dream’ theme.”

Neufang was an actor, director and board member with the Milwaukee LGBTQ theater company, Theatrical Tendencies. When I mention Albee’s path-setting open homosexuality, he replies, “I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve been with my partner for 10 years. We’re not married, but it’s fascinating being gay and handling this story and looking at this marriage and dissecting it. Albee’s observations of married life are very intriguing; not just with George and Martha, but also with Honey and Nick’s relationship—the dynamics of that. The cast and I have talked about this many times. Who’s going to survive? We think George and Martha will be fine, but Nick and Honey are a mess; after this evening, everything will change for them.”

Neufang pitched the play to Milwaukee Entertainment Group producers Amanda Hull and Tom Marks two years ago. This proved to be the moment for it, as Hull explains. “Our season is called ‘Fortitude;’ it’s all about women overcoming the odds in many ways. We are doing people’s passion projects. We’ve done many local playwrights. We do at least one original play every year; this year, it’s two: JJ Gatesman’s The Beauty of Psyche and Bill Jackson’s Table for Three.” The season closes with The Diary of Anne Frank, and Hull will direct a Sherlock Holmes adventure for the holidays.

“Tom and I hold ourselves to high standards,” Hull continues. “Audiences get to come to this beautiful Victorian mansion, then down to a subterranean theater…”

Marks continues, “…which we make into another world…”

Hull finishes, “…and see a brand new play or a reimagined version of something they thought they knew but didn’t know this way.”

Oct. 18-Nov. 2 at the Brumder Mansion, 3046 W. Wisconsin Ave. for tickets, call 414-388-9104 or visit milwaukeeentertainmentgroup.com.