Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Elevator Repair Service’s EVERYONE’S FINE WITH VIRGINIA WOOLF is a total hoot for the initiated

• By drediman
• June 14, 2018
• No Comments

Annie McNamara and Vin Knight in Kate Scelsa’s “Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf” courtesy of Elevator Repair Service at Abrons Arts Center.

Elevator Repair Service has emerged over the years as one of New York’s premiere purveyors of experimental theater. As evidenced by their steady output of well-received avant-garde productions – they’re perhaps best known for their audacious Gatz, the company’s highly theatrical, word-for-word stage “adaptation” of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – they’ve managed to find that elusive balance between the adventurous and the uncannily accessible.

With Kate Scelsa’s Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf, which opened yesterday at Abrons Arts Center, Elevator Repair Service takes another iconic piece of American art – Edward Albee’s biting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – and turns it on its head. What’s starts off as a very amusing parody of Albee’s play eventually finds other avenues of parody and association. This game of connect the dots takes the play into increasingly absurd territories until no semblance of Mr. Albee’s play remains in sight.

If you’re familiar with all the references aggressively thrown at you by Ms. Scelsa (most of them literary in nature), then you’ll have a guaranteed jolly old time. But for those in the audience not quite as lucky to be as knowledgeable, the show may end up being one big head-scratcher (much like the breathtaking, hilarious Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, which shutters this week). Luckily, the production only lasts 75 minutes long and is staged savvily by John Collins and affectionately (!) acted with geeky aplomb.

RECOMMENDED

EVERYONE’S FINE WITH VIRGINIA WOOLF
Off-Broadway, Play
Elevator Repair Service at Abrons Arts Center
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 30