Wer hat Angst vor Virginia Woolf?

A merciless battle of the sexes: Edward Albee’s classic of Modernism leaves the audience disturbed, upset, emotionally shaken – and amused. George and his wife Martha, he a professor of history, she the daughter of the college president, come home drunk from a faculty party.

It is late, but Martha has asked guests over – the biologist Nick and his wife Honey. Nick is the epitome of the “American dream”: young, athletic, ambitious. Honey fits the cliché of a naive, subordinate wife. Martha and George shock their guests by openly continuing their marital dispute of many years in their presence, taking turns to humiliate each other with unbridled enjoyment. A brilliant, perfidious game of power and powerlessness begins! Initially merely baffled spectators of the showstopping marital contest, Nick and Honey are soon relentlessly drawn into the conflict of their excentric hosts. It becomes clear that their own relationship is anything but solid. When Nick and Honey finally leave at dawn, Martha and George are exhausted. After all the lies around which their lives revolve have been destroyed, they may have a chance at a new beginning. Because all their hatred disguises the impossible: love. But must love hurt to be felt? In his thrilling psychological drama, Edward Albee (1928–2016) parades the abyss of a marriage’s everyday hell as a biting comedy set in a living room. The play presents the most masterfully executed private battle ever seen on stage – it is still the unrivalled blueprint for all comedies and tragedies about the popular games of marital warfare.

An archaic battle scene with very modern people! Claus Tröger, who has staged many productions in Austria, Germany and Italy, for instance directed the European premiere of “Dry Powder” at the Salzburg State Theatre, as well as “Network” at the ORF Landesstudio Salzburg, the regional TV studio of Austria’s public broadcasting company. Together with stage and costume designer Erich Uiberlacker, he presented Stefano Massini’s trilogy “Lehman Brothers”. Erich Uiberlacker has worked as a free-lance stage designer, for instance for the Wiener Festwochen and the Theater in der Josefstadt.

Duration: 1h 45 min / no break