by AMY BARRATT

It's difficult to imagine the shockwaves that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? sent through the American theatre when it was first produced on Broadway in 1962.

1962! America was still, for all intents and purposes, in the '50s, and here came George and Martha - a couple of grotesques who explode the Betty-Crocker clichés of married bliss like a hamster in a microwave. One of the things you ask yourself going into a production like the one currently playing at the Saidye is, will I still find this shocking?

Obviously, the goddamns and screw-yous don't have the impact that they did in 1962, but the language was never the really shocking thing about Edward Albee's masterpiece. The really shocking thing in Virginia Woolf is the emotional cruelty, and that is something we don't get inured to over time. George and Martha raise cruelty to an art form. They are geniuses of it, and we can only stare at them with wonder and a kind of sick admiration.

Albee's text is so brilliant that all a production really needs to do is not screw it up. This, director Michael Shamata and company manage to do, despite a few unfortunate choices. The gaunt Brenda Robins looks more like a heroin addict than the blowzy drunk Albee had in mind (read the text - it's not just my mental image of Martha that she doesn't fit). Casting against type can be interesting, and Robins is a wonderful actor; she gives a strong performance here but unfortunately never managed to make me forget her physical inappropriateness. A poofy blonde wig (which, judging from pictures, she doesn't seem to have worn in Winnipeg) contributes to an overall drag-queen effect.

Ric Reid is also cast somewhat against type as George - on the short-and-dumpy rather than the tall, drawn side - but he makes it work for him. The two remaining characters in the play - a young couple who Martha invites over for drinks - must also conform to physical requirements in the script: Nick is blond, Honey is "slim-hipped." Patricia Fagan is good to go, Allan Hawco has suffered a really cheesy dye job.

These two characters are far more dated than George and Martha, and yet these young actors make them real for us. Fagan in particular, though not afraid to play for laughs, ultimately makes Honey plausibly neurotic and even sympathetic.

John Ferguson's set, with its dark woods and sombre autumn tones, works nicely. Its gradual rotation over the course of the evening is clever, though I'm not sure if it has any psychological or emotional effect. Ferguson's costumes are fine, with one notable exception. The orange dress he has Martha change into at the top of act two is horrible. When I say orange I don't mean burnt umber. It is orange and polyester and ill-fitting and she wears it for the rest of the play, which is a long time.

At three hours and 20 minutes, including two intermissions, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is tighter than a lot of one-acts out there. Advance ticket sales went so well that the Saidye has added an extra week of performances, March 1-7, and they've moved up the start time for that week only to 7:30 instead of 8 p.m., to allow people to get home before midnight.

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? to March 7 at the Saidye (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine), $16-$33, 739-7944

>> Stage Listings