Washington Post - Highly Recommended
"...Evidence of the embers of old feelings still smoldering is reflected in Letts's hypersensitive George, who prowls the stage with clenched jaw and worried glances over his shoulder, ready for the next blow; it's a messy marriage, but not a dead one, and this George has real power over it. Letts delivers Albee's priceless ripostes with a crispness that conveys both an actor's strength and a writer's appreciation for the brilliance of a script. "In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement, right up to your neck," Letts's George says. "No - right up to your nose. That's much quieter." (It seems no accident that in "August's" scalding exchanges one sometimes hears echoes of Albee.)"
Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...
Move over, Virginia. There's a new wolf in town. Molly Smith and the gang at Arena Stage have imported Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" home to their newly revitalized theater complex. There you'll find a magnificent beast that howls in the night."
Baltimore Sun - Highly Recommended
"...When the brilliant revival of "Virginia Woolf" with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin appeared on Broadway in 2005 (it played the Kennedy Center a couple of years later), another benchmark staging appearing so soon didn't seem very likely. But this version, directed with razor-sharp insight by Pam MacKinnon, is every bit as effective."
DCist - Highly Recommended
"...Seeing Arena Stage's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is one of the most emotionally engaging — and draining — theatrical experiences I've had in recent memory. It's a show that could get me keyed up, choked up or tensed up in an instant, sometimes even without a clear explanation for why."
MetroWeekly - Highly Recommended
"...Still, even with Martha's bitter underpinnings, under the hand of director Pam MacKinnon, there is a noticeable emphasis on the humor and Morton throws off her one-liners with a savage and savvy glee that never diminishes her moments of bitterness and near-rage. And it is through Morton's Martha that Albee's voice rings loudest and clearest as one of the best -- and original -- examples of the quick American wit and the sometimes overlooked (by Europeans) thirst for irony. She is as darkly funny and irreverent as if she had been written yesterday."
WeLoveDC - Highly Recommended
"...Presented by Chicago’s brilliant Steppenwolf Theatre Company as part of Arena Stage’s Edward Albee Festival, this production is simply not to be missed. There’s a complete dedication to the realism of Albee’s script that makes everything passionately alive, from Todd Rosenthal’s tired living room set, crowded with books and booze, to the acting master class delivered by Tracy Letts and Amy Morton. That dedication sucks the audience in and makes us all culpable. You’ll feel dirty afterwards, like a host surveying the piles of empty bottles and broken glass."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"...The first thing an audience will see in the bruising and brilliant production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? now at Arena Stage's Kreeger Theater is how funny Edward Albee's dialogue really is. The drunken banter between Martha (Amy Morton) and George (Tracy Letts) is genial though barbed; these two people really like each other, which makes the later verbal violence that much more horrifying."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"...
Albee Back: The classic Zoo Story now has a domestic first act.
For just over half a century, Edward Albee’s first play, The Zoo Story—about a park-bench encounter between Peter, a reserved middle-class publisher, and Jerry, a volatile transient—stood its ground as a classic one-act. Now it’s a classic Act Two, permanently tethered to Homelife, a recently penned first-act addendum (the author will no longer allow professional theaters to present The Zoo Story on its own) in an evening called At Home at the Zoo."
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"...“I have no sense of humor,” says Martha at one point. “A fine sense of the ridiculous but no sense of humor.” This quote also works nicely as an interpretation of Albee’s rapier-sharp comedy: He forces an audience to laugh even as they’re appalled by themselves. Both Steppenwolf and Arena Stage have done a superb job in highlighting what a master playwright he is, and how much he still has to teach us."
The Georgetowner - Highly Recommended
"...The authenticity, the “real,” is not only created by a quartet of terrific actors and actresses, but by director Pam McKinnon’s sharp pacing, creating little puddles of reflections in a roiling sea, before combat begins anew. That pace keeps the play—two acts and well over three hours—from lagging. You may feel punchy, a little beat up afterwards, but you are never disinterested, sleepy or bored."
DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended
Edward Albee’s 1962 majestic three-act matrimonial grudge match, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is as vigorous and uncompromising as ever, especially in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production at Arena Stage, directed with such dynamite by Pam MacKinnon it gives you the giddy sensation of hearing the words for the very first time.
