The Naples Press: Gulfshore’s ‘Woolf’ promises carefully deliberated howl

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee’s acid-soaked masterpiece, may be difficult to watch. But just imagine starring in and directing it. 

By the time the play opened this week, its cast will have worked with a fight director and intimacy coach, and had practice in throwing items, destroying the set and memorizing positions that change by inches to heighten the continuing tension. Gulfshore Playhouse founder and CEO Kristen Coury, who directs, had to dive into an unprecedented four weeks of rehearsal.  

“We usually rehearse three weeks plus tech. But for this particular show the Albee estate insisted we rehearse four weeks before tech,” she said of the three-plus hour show two weeks before its opening. “I’m very happy that they did because we’d be going into tech tomorrow — and we’re not ready, because it’s long, long, long. 

“It’s so complex. It’s so multilayered and deep,” she continued. “I have always thought previously this show was yelling, yelling, yelling, Martha yelling, more yelling. But I’m enjoying finding ways for us to activate things without it always being so ‘R-r-r-r-r.’” 

Right space, right time 

“This is a play that I’ve avoided for a long time,” Coury admitted, recalling her own experiences with it. “I would leave and say, ‘I don’t understand this play. Why do they do it?’” 

Still, Beth Hylton, who has appeared in four other Gulfshore Playhouse productions (Steel Magnolias, A Doll’s House, Blithe Spirit, Into the Breeches), kept suggesting it to her.   

The time wasn’t right, however, until the Playhouse was in its own theater and had a smaller hall in which to create a more intimate feel. For Virginia Woolf, the Struthers Studio has become a proscenium theater, with one row of seats, for the hardy playgoer, at the edge of the stage. This apparently is a city full of adventurers; two weeks before the opening, only a few dates had more than one stageside seat available. 

The environment of turmoil and resolution requires exact blocking, a ballet done in punches and lurches — “It is choreography,” Coury acknowledged. Even two weeks in, adjustments were being made. 

Jeffrey Binder, in the role of George, the neo-genial host of a friendly cocktail meeting gone awry, was being wrestled into a chair and Coury wanted Sam Bell-Gurwitz, who plays Nick, his alarmed guest, to envelop Binder more than push him down from behind.  

“You don’t want to look like a conga line,” she warned. Later, Beth Hylton — the play’s Martha — was getting instructions on arm movements as she struggled to shush her husband for an intemperate revelation. 

For those unfamiliar with the play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is considered Albee’s detonation of the mythological 1950s American family promulgated in mass media — dad, mom, two kids, conveniently one of each gender, all hard-wired for sentimental relations and easily resolved issues.  

And what an explosion Albee sets off. George and Martha are a middle-aged couple trapped in academia, he as a professor at the local college, she as the daughter of the college president who has quashed her husband’s book and his possibility for rising among the administrative ranks.  

There is no love lost between the two over their withered hopes. Yet they are tethered to each other in a form of war as communication, she in hopes of getting his attention, and he in a vain attempt to ignore her.  

When a new couple at the college accept their invitation for drinks, George and Martha are quick to rummage through their emotional baggage and draw the newcomers into the game. 

Authentic stage, deep psychology 

Staging is authentic to 1962. Scenic designer Kristen Martino’s book-laden living room has a stereo ready with both Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and what sounds like Miles Davis. Greek busts and contemporary art complete the academic eclecticism. Cocktail glasses are sleek ’60s vintage, and this production even uses ice cubes, Martha’s crunchy nervous habit, that are frozen in manual ice cube trays.  

There has been similarly careful thought devoted to the script, as well, to parse out what each character is really saying.  

“I think that what we’ve been working really hard at,” Coury said, “is digging in, making the moments clear — trying to understand more of the psychological layers, like: She does yell when she’s saying, ‘Pay attention to me!’ but it was, to me, very touching when she did it because you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s what she’s looking for — that’s all a big ruse to try to get attention.’ That felt pertinent. It didn’t feel like people just yelling at each other.” 

It becomes eminently clear at one moment in Virginia Woolf, when a distraught Martha declares to George, “There was a second there where I could have gotten through to you, cut through all this crap.” 

“It has everything in it,” said Hylton of her determination to see the play done here. “I’ve been fortunate as an actor to work on many plays by great playwrights — Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and some of the iconic American playwrights. What makes Edward Albee so brilliant is that he writes plays that, on the face of it, look like realism, but they’re really not. 

“I’ve compared this a lot to the Greeks. It rises to the level of emotion and intensity. And any great marriage play — all marriage plays, in fact — are society plays, because they’re holding the mirror up to us.” And, she added, its story embraces all the actors: “Everybody gets a piece of the pie.” 

That includes Honey, Nick’s continually ailing wife, given to nausea, but not pregnancy, as her marriage to Nick had presumed.  

“To play a character, you’re an advocate,” said Becca Ballenger, who is in that role. “You have to love them, even when they make stupid choices, and do things that you would never do.   

“I think that’s kind of the joy of working on a play like this. You look at the character intellectually, and nothing makes sense. You say, ‘Why are they doing that? Why are they saying that?’ But once you get into the emotional logic, that’s where the truth is.” 

‘Woolf’ hunting 

What: Gulfshore Playhouse production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

When: Now through Nov. 23; 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays 

Where: 100 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples 

Tickets/to buy: $84-$114, $39 value; discounts for educators, students with ID; gulfshoreplayhouse.org

The original article can be found here: https://www.naplespress.com/2025/10/24/cover-story-gulfshores-woolf-promises-carefully-deliberated-howls