Entertainment
River City Rep tackles ‘Who’s Afraid?’
The title of Edward Albee’s famous dramatic play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is taken directly from dialogue spoken between the unfortunate couple at the play’s end.
The subtextual meaning in that single line has been studied by college drama students for decades, but for local director Bob Buseick, 80, one answer is clear.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said with a mildly sarcastic laugh. “But I’m scared to death.”
Buseick is directing a two-week run of the play this month at River City Repertory Theatre with Susan Kirton (Martha) and Patrick McWilliams (George) as the married couple, and Logan Sledge (Nick) and Ellen Lindsay (Honey) as their unsuspecting guests for the evening.
Albee’s play is one of the most wellknown theater pieces in American drama, and putting on a production is a huge commitment for both a director and the actors.
In Buseick’s case though, his experience in directing 250 other shows, along with his experience as an actor, and a very strong cast, should elevate this to something never before seen in this area.
“For one thing, this is a very funny play,” Buseick said. “There’s a lot of laughs there, but I’ve seen many productions that never found that.”
Some people may be more familiar with the grim 1963 lm version of the play, which starred Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal and Sandy Dennis.
“I have a lot of respect for the lm director, Mike Nichols, but there’s a heaviness to the lm that is not necessarily true to the play,” he says. “I really hope to help the actors mine the humor, so the audience can see that side of it, too.”
Something else that could add energetic spontaneity to the show is the incredibly brief rehearsal schedule of just two weeks.
“This will be an interesting experience,” Buseick said. “When I was at Centenary, we had at least four weeks to rehearse a show. Here, we have half that. But I thought, ‘well, when I did it in college in Oregon 50 years ago, our director only gave us two weeks. So, we can do it.’” Buseick said the main reason for the time crunch is nances. At professional equity theaters such as River City Rep, actors are paid, which means that during a slow economy, the theater has to be more judicious with rehearsal schedules.
While Buseick was in college, he performed the role of Nick 78 times with two different theater companies. Eight years ago, he retired after more than three decades as professor of the theater program at Centenary College, where McWilliams, Kirton and Sledge had once been his students.
This month, Buseick turned 80. He’s never directed this play before.
“After I performed as Nick, at the time, I didn’t care if I never acted again, because that was the ultimate experience in acting. It was a milestone for me, and it was years before I went back to acting. But this is one of the American classics. This is the time for me to do something I really want to do. It just worked out to be able to do it with three of my previous students, and it’s kind of special to me.”
“This is the Super Bowl of dramatic plays, so it’s great to be working in the River City Rep environment, where you know everyone’s on their A-game,” Kirton said.
“At this level, the actors have known for months they had the role, and they come in knowing their lines and characters, and we can all get right to it and make the most of that short rehearsal schedule.”
Like Buseick, Kirton is well aware of the weight the show carries for everyone involved. “Doing this is both exciting and terrifying,” she said. “You have to be mentally and emotionally prepared. The script is 257 pages long, and it’s all dialogue that’s so expertly written and intricate, you just have to nail it.”
McWilliams is the artistic director at RCRT but has not been on the acting stage for seven years and also just experienced the loss of a dear friend in New York. He said this show is a chance to parlay some very real feelings into the character.
“The roles are gigantic, and I have a lot of emotions bouncing around right now, but these are great friends I’m with in the show, and it’s a very comforting and supportive place to be. It will be nice to invest all that.”
– Eric Lincoln
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. June 26-29; 3 p.m. June 30
WHERE: East Bank Theatre For tickets, call 868-5888 or order online at http://therepsvirginiawoolf. brownpapertickets.com/.
