Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not Kat Stewart and her husband

Portraits of marital hellhole don’t travel overmuch much brutal than Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, truthful you mightiness ideate the past happening a brace of joined actors would privation to bash is hazard their ain narration by taking it on.

But, boldly throwing caution to the wind, that’s precisely what Kat Stewart and David Whiteley are doing arsenic the revival of Edward Albee’s 1962 play moves from the tiny 80-seat Red Stitch Theatre successful St Kilda to the 800-seat Comedy Theatre adjacent month, frankincense becoming the archetypal accumulation successful the company’s 23-year past to marque the elephantine leap to the commercialized main stage.

“This is simply a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says Stewart of the accidental to enactment with her hubby for the archetypal clip since 2007.

“It’s a uncommon gift,” Whiteley agrees. “We didn’t deliberation we’d get the accidental ever again.”

Kat Stewart and David Whiteley met astatine Red Stitch successful 2002.Credit: Simon Schluter

The brace met astatine Red Stitch successful 2002, erstwhile Whiteley – a founding subordinate of the institution – auditioned the young selling postgraduate turned aspiring actress.

“They precise strategically got maine successful due to the fact that past they’d person a publicist,” she jokes. “When I joined determination were 12 actors, and we each did everything. We cleaned the toilets and enactment the posters up successful the beforehand of house. Whenever I did a amusement I got different histrion to bash the publicity due to the fact that it would person been weird otherwise.”

They’ve been unneurotic since 2004, and person 2 children, aged 8 and 12. But arsenic Stewart’s TV enactment took disconnected – she won an AFI grant and a Logie for her crook arsenic Roberta Williams successful the archetypal Underbelly (2008), and was 1 of the stars of long-running bid Offspring and Five Bedrooms – their nonrecreational lives diverged. She past performed with Red Stitch successful 2010, though she has often been backmost connected signifier since with the Melbourne Theatre Company.

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Whiteley, meanwhile, has been a mainstay of Red Stitch, which continues to foster caller writing, springiness opportunities to emerging actors and directors, and nutrient challenging theatre for a loyal audience.

What it hasn’t done earlier is instrumentality 1 if its micro-productions to a large commercialized venue (though a mates of shows person enjoyed little runs astatine the Arts Centre).

The thought of staging 1 of the classics of 20th period American theatre was calved retired of a tendency to people the company’s coming of age. “This is not a play Red Stitch would usually person done,” says Stewart. “It was the 21st anniversary, and we were having a portion astatine the enactment and being nostalgic astir aged times, and I said, ‘I’d emotion to travel backmost someday’. And [artistic director] Ella [Caldwell] said, ‘I’d emotion you to travel back. What if we did thing special?’ So doing a classical was thing rather different.”

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton successful a country from the 1966 movie of Edward Albee’s play.Credit: Warner Brothers/Getty Images

For manager Sarah Goodes, who oversaw the accumulation mounted connected the “postage stamp-sized stage” astatine the company’s St Kilda location and is besides helming its modulation to the wide-open abstraction of the Comedy, the thought of pairing Stewart – with whom she had worked astatine Melbourne Theatre Company – and Albee’s bitingly comic enactment astir a mates who emotion and loathe each different successful adjacent measurement was instantly intoxicating.

“Kat said, ‘I’m truly funny successful doing a play astir pistillate rage’, and I went, ‘you’re on’. That was the extremity of the conversation,” Goodes says.

But revisiting the play ne'er felt similar an workout successful dusting disconnected a depository piece. “What’s truthful large astir doing the classics is you go, ‘Oh, radical person been dealing with the aforesaid worldly for years’,” Goodes says. “But also, it isn’t conscionable astir rage. It’s astir however overmuch they emotion each other, and however being unsocial successful a narration is terrifying.”

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There’s an undeniable frisson successful the thought of a real-life mates playing the hard-drinking, twisted game-playing world George and his woman Martha, who is conscionable arsenic astute arsenic her hubby but doomed by the times to person precise fewer avenues to show it.

The astir celebrated rendering of the play was the 1966 film, successful which Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – past 3 years into the archetypal of their 2 stormy, obsessive, booze-filled marriages – starred, alongside a young George Segal and Sandy Dennis arsenic the young mates lured into the older pair’s toxicity. The movie won 5 Oscars, including for Taylor and Dennis.

For Whiteley and Stewart, the biggest situation has been dovetailing nonrecreational and household responsibilities erstwhile some parents are astatine the bureau astatine the aforesaid time.

“Logistically it’s a nightmare,” says Stewart. “If 1 of them gets sick ... well, nary 1 tin get sick.”

“When we get into the theatre, that’s fun, that’s easy,” adds Whiteley. “It’s conscionable each the different worldly that’s hard to organise.”

But, if we tin beryllium candid present for a moment, bash you 2 combat successful your real-life relationship?

“Oh yeah,” says Whiteley.

“How situation you,” says Stewart.

“Kat fights,” helium quips. “I conscionable agree.”

“Phwoah,” she scoffs. “I deliberation it’s unhealthy erstwhile couples don’t combat – it means they’re not engaged. I deliberation it’s important to combat a bit. We don’t combat similar George and Martha, though. These guys are disconnected the charts. It’s savage. I mean, we’re not trying to destruct each other.”

Whiteley says: “People ask, ‘do you get confused betwixt your quality and your existent life?’

“Well, no, not really. It’s a character. It’s a large character, I emotion the character, I emotion the situation, and I bash gully from our narration and our life. But we’re not surviving successful the aforesaid sphere.”

Stewart adds: “I don’t privation to get cocky due to the fact that I don’t deliberation anyone’s bulletproof … We’re evidently truly benignant to each other. But the portion that’s been the astir amusive happening for maine is that we get to beryllium our enactment selves again aft each these years. Because that’s however it started.

“We’ve got our enactment successful communal again, which is truly cool.”

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is astatine the Comedy Theatre from June 29 to July 21. Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Contact the writer astatine kquinn@theage.com.au, travel him connected Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and Twitter astatine @karlkwin, and work much of his enactment here.

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