The Powerful, Painful "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Mike Nichols' domestic drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a test of willpowers. Firstly it's a test of willpower between the larger-than-life Martha and George (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton giving equally excellent, powerful performances, although Taylor has the slight upper-hand for how catty, unvain she's allowed to be) and the struggle for supremacy in their rotten, long suffering marriage. But it's also a test of the will of the audience to witness this slowly unraveling domiciliary hell. Ernest Lehman's script (adapted from the play by Edward Albee) lets the affair unfold so that we see every bitter, dirty little detail to this caustic, codependent nightmare. As the night goes on, secrets are revealed, old wounds and resentments are revisited, and the two test how far they're willing to push the other before the captive audience of another younger couple who has no clue what they've signed themselves up for (dragging them unceremoniously down to their level). It's searing, painful, all-too-real and powerfully acted.

Grade: A