Many are familiar with Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, one of the most cutting seminal works of modern theatre. It has been a mainstay of dramatic study since it debuted, with many a performer cutting his or teeth on the playwright’s sharply-fanged roles, some to better success than others. But the current Woolf revival, imported from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and directed by Pam MacKinnon, does just what the term implies, breathing new life and insight into this warhorse of a play.

Much of the credit goes to the quartet bringing these storied characters to life: Carrie Coon and Madison Dirks are perfectly matched as Honey and Nick, while Tracy Letts’ George turns the tables on Amy Morton’s Martha as we’ve never seen it before. It’s a reversal that sheds new light on the relationship between these warriors of words. But Martha gives as good as she gets, and Morton’s performance adds credibility to the character in ways never before seen. Her Martha likes entertaining, and loves holding court over new people. A Woolf production has never made it clearer as to just why Nick and Honey don’t just go home from the party that precedes the play’s action and instead enter George and Martha’s den of depravity – or why they find it so hard to leave.

“We had a lot of discussions about why they haven’t left,” Morton explained. “It always kept us from getting too insane. They have their reasons for staying, partly having to do with who [Martha’s] father is. Nick’s ambition is there, but George and Martha also keep these people in the room. Their fighting is too interesting for them to leave.”

And how. Morton acknowledges, like everyone, a familiarity with the both the role of Martha and the play itself. “I saw the movie on TV when I was a kid, maybe ten or eleven, watching it with my dad,” she recalls. “I was really enthralled and really confused. I thought, ‘Why are these grownups so mad at each other?’”

Subsequent study of the play, however, brought greater enlightenment Morton’s way. “I think she is incredibly sad and smart and witty, probably just a riot to be around,” she says. And she understands why a seething Martha has gone to seed. “I think her spirit in her early years was very intuitive, very gutsy, very earthy. If she was around today, she would be at the top of some career. But that wasn’t what women did back then for the most part.

“That’s the frustration of her life,” Morton continues. “She’s living life through her husband, and her ambition was large but his was not. That’s where a lot of her pain comes from, her thwarted ambition. If you can’t have kids or a career, Jesus!”

But a lot of the reason why this production shines – and it is scintillating – is the interplay between longtime friends and colleagues Letts and Morton. The two Chicago-based performers may be best known for their collaboration on the mammothly successful awards baiter August: Osage County – he wrote and had a featured role, she took on perhaps the show’s most demanding leading role – but they go way back. “Tracy and I have worked together for so long, I think this is the fifth or sixth time we’ve been married,” Morton jokes. “We’re so familiar with each other, which helped us make sure the baseline in this play was of a relationship about love. This is a couple who, underneath it all, all the vitriol, love each other very deeply.”

Morton and Letts’ understanding of the show – which Morton describes as “seriously deep writing” – comes from a long time of attachment to the play. Morton herself directed it nearly a decade ago at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, and the production ran at Steppenwolf and Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage. Playwright Albee came to Chicago during the rehearsal phase.

“He talked about the play,” she says, “which was illuminating, it was great. He watched some scenes and had some discussions with Pam. Some were more dramaturgical, and some were ‘This is how I see George and Martha.’”

And what was it like running the show in front of its creator? “Absolutely intimidating,” she acknowledges. “I don’t know anyone who would say he watched us and were perfectly fine; you’d need nerves of steel. But it was also very exciting.”

Morton confirms that the role of Martha is definitely a workout. “I don’t do much during the day because I am constantly conserving energy. I kind of lay low, I sleep a lot, I eat a lot, I basically live like a monk.”  And she acknowledges being homesick for Chicago while Woolf continues its open-ended Broadway run. “I miss my house and my friends and my family,” she admits, which includes her husband Rob Milburn, who did sound design for Woolf but spends most of his time in Chicago. “I’m sequestered by the show. But I am also really busy and I love New York and I have friends here. And I treat myself on Sundays with a great massage and go someplace fabulous for dinner. I’m always asking people ‘Where should I go?’”

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is running at the Booth theatre. More information can be found at virginiawoolfbroadway.com.

A new revival of Albee’s forgotten The Lady from Dubuque sheds light on the darkest of topics

In his signature work, Edward Albee asked “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” In The Lady from Dubuque, which Signature is reviving following an abortive 1980 New York run, the playwright opens his show with the question “Who am I?” Various permutations of this question will be asked over the course of this deceptive show, and while plenty of meaty nuggets are to be found, don’t expect any straightforward answers to that seemingly most basic of questions.

Sam (a superb Michael Hayden) is the initial character to pose this question, as part of a parlor game he and wife Jo (Laila Robins) are hosting for four of their friends (Catherine Curtin, Thomas Jay Ryan, Tricia Paoluccio, and C. J. Wilson) in their impressive modern home (John Arnone’s set decoration is gorgeous, somehow being both sterile and saliva-inducing). Jo is as gracious as she can be, given that she’s enduring the painful symptoms terminal illness, which she tells the audience in one of many moments of Pirandellian direct address with which Albee peppers his play.

The answer, as it were, to Sam’s “Twenty Questions” riddle is deceiving – he’s not one person but two. But Lady brings even cloudier issues of identity to the surface once the silky Elizabeth (Jane Alexander) and her cohort, Oscar (Peter Francis James) let themselves in to the household once everyone else has left or retired to bed. Elizabeth purports to be Jo’s mother, and though Sam insists she cannot be, that she bears no resemblance to his dying wife’s actual mother, Jo offers no resistance. Though cloaked in white (Elizabeth Hope Clancy designed the costumes), Elizabeth seems to be none other than Death incarnate, and Jo accedes to her imminent demise in making friends with her, embracing (literally) a new family as she weans herself off of her existing one.

One can see, perhaps, why Dubuque proved so confounding upon its original staging: it’s evasive and elliptical, and some dialogue that Albee thinks is smart is actually rather silly. And the second act return of the two supporting couples feels clunky. But the playwright has bigger themes in mind, and in the hands of director David Esbjornson (who also directed the Tony-winning Broadway run of Albee’s The Goat), the increasingly barbed, metaphysical flights of fancy feel instructive. There are life lessons here about who we are and what others do for us that should not be ignored. For instance, Sam loves Jo but can no longer help her; in fact, his mere touch only wounds his love as her body continues to punish and betray her.

Esbjornson also conjures deep performances from his ensemble, particularly Paoluccio as the outsider of this incongruous group of friends and Wilson as its gruffest member. Alexander is exquisite, all the more unsettling because of her constantly calm demeanor. Depending on how one views the play, either Elizabeth, Jo or Sam will be its true lead (for me, it’s Sam). And what’s important is the answers given – or lack thereof – as much as the questions. Who is asking them, and why? What do we ultimately need from one another? The longer Jo cleaves to Elizabeth (for Robins, forced to writhe and moan, Dubuque must be quite an endurance run), the more we in the audience question what we look for in the company we hold near and dear.

Kudos to the Signature’s players and Esbjornson in particular. In resuscitating Dubuque, they have proven that a play about death has plenty of vital signs.

Edward Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque

At the End Stage Theater in the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, Clinton; thru April 15, signaturetheatre.org. $75.00

Compiled by Allen Houston

Friday, September 24

Pipilotti Rist: Heroes of Birth—Rist already seduced many with her MoMA atrium installation; now comes a chance to check out new videos from the Swiss artist, including “All or Nothing,” a triptych of mounted LCD screens that is surrounded by an altar with daily offerings such as fresh flowers and water “for visitors to pause and quench their thirst.” Luhring Augustine, 534 W. 24th St., 212-206-9100; 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Free.

Doug Varone and Dancers: Stripped—No, they’re not removing their clothes, but Varone’s ensemble of committed, juicy movers will showcase excerpts from a work-in-progress on Italian themes and repertory excerpts in these informal studio presentations—a chance to savor his adventurous, full-bodied choreography while waiting for the troupe’s March Joyce season. 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-279-3344; 8 p.m., $25 at door.

Saturday, September 25

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt—If you’ve scared a child by telling her not to make faces because it may stay that way, this exhibit may be the creepy truth. The first exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to this major late-18th-century Austro-Bavarian sculptor, the Messerschmidt exhibit focuses on the artist’s creepy-cool “character heads.” Neue Galerie, 1048 5th Ave., 212-628-6200; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., $15.

Mark Twain, a Skeptic’s Progress—If you enjoy poring over the scribblings and pontifications of legendary writers and thinkers, then here’s a granddaddy of an exhibit. Coinciding with the 175th anniversary of Twain’s birth, this joint exhibit is presented by The Morgan and The New York Public Library—which hold two of the world’s great collections of manuscripts and rare books by the iconic author. It includes more than 120 letters, notebooks, diaries, photographs and drawings associated with the author’s life and work, and is supplemented by Twain’s correspondence, drawings and illustrations, photographs and several 3-dimensional artifacts. Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008; 10 a.m.-6 p.m., $12.

Saturday, September 26

Tuesday, September 28

Me, Myself & I—Starring Brian Murray and Elizabeth Ashley, this Edward Albee play is about a mother who can’t distinguish between her twin sons. May not be promising for the boys, but it’s a great season opener for us. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St., 212-279-4200; 8 p.m., $75.

Wednesday, September 29

Jazz Giants—Bill Wurtzel and Mike Gari will perform jazz guitar music. American Folk Art Museum, West 66th Street and Columbus Avenue, 2 Lincoln Square Branch; 2 p.m.-3 p.m., Free.

Thursday, September 30

Blood Into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky—The Museum of Arts and Design screens Fando Y Lis, one of Chilean guru/filmmaker/comic book writer Jodorowsky’s movies. Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, 212-299-7740; 7 p.m. $7-$10.