A quiet moment of marital or martial bliss between Jeffrey Binder and Martha Beth Hylton in Gulfshore Playhouse’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
By Nancy Stetson
Despite its many awards, Kristen Coury wasn’t keen on directing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The play is long. It’s puzzling. It’s contentious. And, as Coury states in her director’s notes, it seemed like “a master class in yelling.”
As she puts it: “I admit to having written it off as too ugly, too loud, and too vulgar.”
But she changed her mind.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens Gulfshore Playhouse’s 2025-26 season, running through Nov. 23 in its Struthers Studio.
I admit to sharing some of Coury’s apprehensions about this classic Edward Albee play, but I’m so glad she changed her mind. Coury’s directed an astounding production that’s more a master class in acting than yelling.
If you think you’ve seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, guess again, because you’ve likely not seen a production as nuanced and as superb as Gulfshore Playhouse’s current offering.
Yes, there’s yelling and endless drinking. But there’s plenty of richness and even humor.
George (Jeffrey Binder) and Martha (Beth Hylton) argue and fight and bicker. They taunt and humiliate each other. He’s a history professor at a small New England college, stalled mid-career and mid-life. She’s his frustrated, enraged wife, also the daughter of the college’s president.
Martha has unwisely invited a new faculty member for afterparty drinks: Nick (Sam Bell-Gurwitz) and his timid wife, Honey (Becca Ballenger). The couple shows up on George and Martha’s doorstep and it’s already past 2 a.m.
They’ve all been drinking, and the drinking doesn’t stop. (Binder steps behind the bar to pour drinks for everyone so many times, I lost count.)
Perhaps George and Martha need a new audience for their fights, or desire new participants in the twisted psychological games they play. And indeed, one of their games is called “Get the Guests.”
You know you’re in good hands from the very beginning, when George and Martha tumble drunkenly through their front door and Martha takes the Lord’s name in vain, then declares, “What. A. Dump.”
Their home is a typical professor’s home, filled with books and paintings, both representational and abstract. (Set design by Kristen Martino.) Even their couch is the color of alcohol.
Hylton and Binder are riveting in their roles. Their marriage is like a car crash; you can’t take your eyes off of them. These are two skilled actors at the height of their talent.
As Martha, Hylton is larger than life, taunting and antagonizing. She flirts shamelessly with Nick, dancing seductively with him in front of her husband. But though George may appear to be mild-mannered, he gives as good as he gets. Martha may be loud, but he is scheming his revenge. He even, at one point, fights her with flowers. The two battle with words like champion boxers trading blows.
Nick and Honey are confused by their hosts’ behavior, but it’s soon apparent they have their own problems in their marriage. Bell-Gurwitz plays Nick as brash, confident in his yet-untested ability to deal with life. He thinks he has it all figured out, but as the play progresses, he grows childlike and defeated. Ballenger, as his mouse-like wife, is bubbly and naïve. Over time, she grows looser as she becomes more drunk.
These four actors are the perfect quartet, performing together, then as trios and duos. There are games aplenty taking place over the course of the night, and the guests aren’t sure of the rules.
Truth and illusion blend.
Tracy Dorman’s costumes are pitch-perfect for these characters and the era. George looks professorial and tweedy, Martha flashy in her low-cut dress. Nick cuts a handsome figure in his dark suit and sharp white shirt, while Honey is conservative and proper.
This is as near perfect a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as you can get.
A couple of quibbles: The lighting seems to fight with the set at times, casting strange shadows on the walls and the actors. And Hylton’s make-up doesn’t give her the haggard, prematurely aged face of a chronic drinker. But these are minor things.
This is a powerful production not to be missed. Even though it’s the venue’s opening play of the season, it’s already on my “best of the season” list.
The venue was smart to stage it in its black box theater; the intimate seating of the Struthers Studio makes you feel as if you are in George and Martha’s living room. (You wonder if the seats should come equipped with safety bars and seat harnesses, because this is such a wild ride of a play.)
Gulfshore Playhouse has given us a Virginia Woolf that is harrowing and provocative, full of depth and humor and human tragedy.
What a marriage.
What a play.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Plays through Nove. 23 at the Gulfshore Playhouse ( located at the Baker Theatre and Education Center, 100 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples). Tickets are $84 to $114. For more information call (239) 261-7529 or go to gulfshoreplayhouse.org.
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