October 27, 2011
The subject matter of A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is far from cheery: family life, ageing, alcoholism, existential dread, the limits of friendship. Nevertheless, the audience was laughing out loud for much of the evening.
Partly, of course that is down to the script itself, with its laser beam accuracy for relationships. 'I wish you dead,' says Claire to her sister at one point, 'but I don't want you dead'.
Like the more famous play, it all takes place in a living room, but so much is going on between the people on stage that you barely notice that the set has not changed.Time and again the characters hover on the brink of understanding each other, only to destroy that possibility the next moment.
This Oxford Theatre Guild production is not only witty but moving.
Lisa Barnett as Claire - 'not an alcoholic - I'm just a drunk' - sparkled her way through the evening as a foil to her deeply angry married sister, Agnes (Mary Stuck). Agnes bullies and opines, constantly overriding her sister, her ineffectual husband and her daughter, Julia, who comes 'home' having left her fourth husband. Agnes is not happy: Julia is pushing forty and Agnes's chances of being the youngest-looking Granny on the block are diminishing.
Yet by the end of the play we are given a glimpse of the grief and disappointment that underlies Agnes's manner - and begin to wonder if maybe she is right about her way of holding the family together. No-one else is managing it. This was a more subtle part than Claire's but powerfully portrayed.
This is a production not to be missed.
Partly, of course that is down to the script itself, with its laser beam accuracy for relationships. 'I wish you dead,' says Claire to her sister at one point, 'but I don't want you dead'.
Like the more famous play, it all takes place in a living room, but so much is going on between the people on stage that you barely notice that the set has not changed.Time and again the characters hover on the brink of understanding each other, only to destroy that possibility the next moment.
This Oxford Theatre Guild production is not only witty but moving.
Lisa Barnett as Claire - 'not an alcoholic - I'm just a drunk' - sparkled her way through the evening as a foil to her deeply angry married sister, Agnes (Mary Stuck). Agnes bullies and opines, constantly overriding her sister, her ineffectual husband and her daughter, Julia, who comes 'home' having left her fourth husband. Agnes is not happy: Julia is pushing forty and Agnes's chances of being the youngest-looking Granny on the block are diminishing.
Yet by the end of the play we are given a glimpse of the grief and disappointment that underlies Agnes's manner - and begin to wonder if maybe she is right about her way of holding the family together. No-one else is managing it. This was a more subtle part than Claire's but powerfully portrayed.
This is a production not to be missed.