Who's afraid of a mainstream house?

>> Virginia Woolf is a must-see for Marleau's performance

by AMY BARRATT

One of the best things about this job is that I pretty much get to decide which plays to see from week to week. Sometimes the choice is obvious, but more often, especially at this time of year, it's a tough call. This week I could have attended several "créations"--new Quebec plays--at relatively funky venues. Instead, I hied myself to the stodgy Théatre du Rideau Vert to see a 40-year-old American play in translation. As a critic for an "alternative" paper, I should probably be ashamed of myself. But three elements made Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? impossible to resist: Louise Marleau in the role of Martha; a translation by Michel Tremblay; and the play itself, by Edward Albee.

I hadn't seen la Marleau on stage for years and frankly couldn't quite visualize her as that empress of vulgarity, Martha. I thought she might be a little too ethereal, a little too refined. Oops, she's an actress. Loud, crude, kétaine, crumbling yet almost unbearably sexy, Marleau is a great Martha.

Tremblay's translation retains the spirit of the Albee, with the added bonus that the new language rejuvenates a well-worn work. I was curious how the play-on-words of the title would be handled for an audience that probably was not familiar with the animated Three Little Pigs singing "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Director Martin Faucher works a clip from that very cartoon into a montage of images shown on a black-and-white TV set before the play begins. The TV is part of George and Martha's livingroom and the images projected help evoke the time and place of the play (early-'60s New England).

The play is indisputably a modern classic, but thinking of any text in those terms is dangerous for a production. The company needs to find a way to bring the text to life as if for the first time. Here again, the fact that it's in translation helps. As does the fact that many audience members will not have seen the play before. As an introduction to the work for the uninitiated, Faucher's production is just fine. Those looking for a new spin on a familiar work won't find it here. (There would be no real justification--except Marleau's performance--for Bryna Wasserman to pick up this production for an English run at the Saidye, but it's just the sort of thing she might do.)

The production has exactly the kind of look one expects to see at TRV (the same kind of look you invariably get at the Saidye): big, detailed, realistic interiors. The designers are having a good time evoking 1962, in everything from the women's hairstyles, to the costumes, to the record albums on the shelving unit. I'm not somebody who needs every single work to be deconstructed, but it would be fun to see what a company like Théatre de L'Opsis--once they get through the 19th century Russian canon--could do with 20th century American drama.

The play runs over three hours long and Faucher has inserted the only intermission after Act 1, thus leaving us to sit through Acts 2 and 3 at one go. This goes against the conventional wisdom that post-intermission running time should be shorter than pre-intermission. One intermission is plenty, but it should come between Acts 2 and 3. :

Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? to Oct. 21 at Théatre du Rideau Vert, Tues-Fri 8pm, Sat 3pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm, $17-38.50, 844-1793