Antonio Latella returns to direct an extraordinary cast in the masterpiece by Edward Albee
“It is impossible not to begin from the title in examining this play; as a substitution for the wolf in the song “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”, Albee trots out Virginia Woolf, who fought for female emancipation; a woman who taught other women to kill their mothers, or rather the idea of the mother, the “angel of the hearth”. I believe that much of this can be found in the piece. Woolf is present in the two lead characters, who reflect the young couple chosen as a sacrifice for this extremely violent and desperate love, this ‘jeu de massacre’”.

It is a realistic, powerful and visionary piece, in which the dizzying laughter devours and absorbs the characters. In revealing the mechanisms of a language that has lost all meaning, Albee also, almost paradoxically, shows how this can become a powerful weapon in attacking and destroying the shell in which each of us hides our personality and our weaknesses.

To this end, Antonio Latella has chosen “an unexpected and not obvious cast, one that capable of wrong-footing and rendering more powerful a play that is often summed up as a night-time story of sex and alcohol. It is a cast that, within the bodies of the actors, already carries a sense of imaginary betrayal, an act of acting that stands up against the maddening aspects of civilisation, aspects that Albee knew all too well, as the choice of the title suggests. Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Put your hand up”.