Girls, Can You Believe This Is The Season's First Top Theater Ticket?????????

                                        No one was more I excited than I, darlings, when I heard that "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" was being brought to Broadway with playwright Tracy Letts (playwright, and who played the father in the one scene of the Original Cast of "August"Osage County) and Amy Morton (a superb Nurse Ratched, awhile back in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," not to mention embittered older daughter Barbara in the Tracy Letts play!!!!!!!!); I was so  excited!!!!!!!!!!!  But who could have imagined this response???????

                                         Before it opened, I am told, it was possible to get at it TKTS, or on Theatremania.com, but now--forget it!!!!!!!!!! Now, I know everyone loves a good bitchfest, now and then, but you have to understand, "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" is still not only the bitchfest of all time, it is one of the few that is not at all campy!!!!!!  It is dead serious in its bitchiness, which is what steers some people away from it.

                                         I can still recall when the film first came out, the first time I ever heard of it, let alone of doing a film with only four people in the cast.  My friend Doug's parents kept a paperback copy of the play in their bedroom closet, which I could not understand, because, knowing them, they were not theater folk by any stretch of imagination. What did they do? I wondered, read the play to each other at night before bed??????   Pleasant dreams, dolls!!!!!!   Anyway, as soon as we heard it was for adults only, and that it had a lot of curse words in it (because, at that age, we looked for ANY excuse to curse!!!!!!!) we made a beeline for the closet, retrieved it on the sly, and read it aloud, ourselves.

                                         Of course, there were major fights over who would play Martha, which we both wanted to, since she seemed to have the foulest language.  I usually won, being the better actor.  I knew even then, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And it was such fun.  We would read it, act it out, then put it back.  To this day, I am not sure if his parents ever knew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          Naturally, we were both dying to see the film, but were prevented, when my mother's friend, Dottie Kramer, declared profoundly, "Definitely NOTHING for a child to see!!!!!"  Oh, Aunt Dottie, if you only knew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            When I turned 12, shortly after this, my parents asked what I wanted for my birthday, and I told them I wanted to direct them in this.  That gave them something to think about, let me tell you!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                               Back in 2005, I did see that revival of the play, featuring that bovine cow, Miss Kathleen Turner, who, had she been allowed to play it right, would have been spot on as Martha!!!!!!!!!!!!  But, unfortunately, Anthony Page, who should have known better, directed the whole thing as a comedy, so that the audience around me was lapping it up as though at a Neil Simon play.  What has this to do with Albee's drama? I wondered.

                                                  I anticipate the current staging; judging by the cast, the Steppenwolf pedigree and Pam McKinnon's direction, this  will certainly  improve things, so I am anxious to see what may be the most definitive production of this work in my lifetime.  Too bad the wonderful David Harbour (now going into the "Glengarry Glen Ross" revival), so wonderful as Nick, in 2005, could not be bought back here, Alas,!  But this 'Virginia Woof' sounds like it will make up for that earlier one, which is why people of all sorts--queens and married folk alike--are flocking to it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                  What a dump!, I am telling you!!!!!!!!  What a dump!!!!!!!!!!!!