Many will be familiar with the story of Edward Albee’s Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?: the middle-aged Martha and George take out their deepest frustrations on each other at home and drag their younger overnight guests Honey and Nick into their destructive and psychological game.
Naomi van der Horst, Imke Mol, Mitch Van Landeghem and Flor Van Severen graduated from KASK/Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent in the Drama department with this iconic “well-made play”. Later on they founded the new theatre company WOLF WOLF, joined by light designer and scenographer Gilles Pollak, who was previously involved in the creation of Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
Being a young performer, how do you throw yourself in the shoes of a character with a rich history? How do you bring to the stage a modern classic that has already been performed in almost every conceivable form, by both amateur and Hollywood stars? Together with their characters, the actors in this piece fight a battle between truth and illusion. Slowly everyone, performer and audience, is drawn into the deep pool of fiction. And again, in the version by WOLF WOLF, one fact remains inevitable: this afterparty will go on beyond sunrise. And no one will be spared.
In the interpretation of this modern classic by WOLF WOLF, the audience takes place around the scene, as if attending a boxing match. Without any scenography, very close to the spectators, starting in their casual rehearsal clothing, the performers play the over two hour show with nothing more than a handful of costumes, some lights and a melting stack of ice cubes.
Flor Van Severen, Mitch Van Landeghem, Imke Mol and Naomi van der Horst have individually performed with various Flemish and Dutch companies, including FC Bergman, Studio Orka, Hof van Eede, Malpertuis and Camping Sunset. Together they form the new company WOLF WOLF. In their joint work they try to take a deep dive into classic and contemporary theatre repertoire, starting from a love of performing and playing, through which they search for a critical awareness, and at the same time try to open up to a wide audience.
After originally playing Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? as a graduation project in 2019, the show was selected for the “young work” program of the summer festival Theater Aan Zee in Ostend, where it was awarded by a festival jury of youngsters. The show was then selected by the official TheaterFestival jury of 2020, who thereby declared it one of the most relevant artistic and social productions of that year. The production will tour in Flanders in 2022.
All images © Leontien Allemeersch
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Originally playing in 2019
Premiere 20th September 2020 at Kaaitheater
For the next dates of 2022 click here.
