She’s Striking, the Perfect ‘Balance’

Edward Albee burst on the theater scene in the late 1950s as a voice of the absurd and was soon destroying the furniture in living-room plays set among the alcoholic upper middle-classes.

The brutal fun and games of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” his 1962 Broadway hit about the destruction of a childless couple’s most cherished illusions, established Albee’s mainstream credentials as an heir to Tennessee Williams and Eugene Ionesco.

In “A Delicate Balance,” a 1966 drama being revived with a striking performance and impressive results at the Alternative Repertory Theatre, Albee explores the existential terror visited upon a family by best friends and its effect on the deeply troubled relationships already under enormous strain from the tensions of ordinary suburban life.

Except for the particulars, “A Delicate Balance” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” share thematic roots and recognizable milieus. But they were not to share the same success with theatergoers.

When the original “A Delicate Balance” opened on Broadway, times had changed considerably from 1962. The atmosphere--with the advent of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination and the arrival of the Beatles and psychedelic drugs forming a new reality--more or less assured the irrelevance of living room plays. For that matter, the new reality cast doubt on the relevance of Broadway itself.

“A Delicate Balance” closed after a short run, its Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding. The popular and critical consensus was summarized in 1984 by the Oxford Companion to the American Theatre: “A curiously elusive play . . . often more satisfying as an intellectual exercise than as a dramatic theater piece.”

So last year Lincoln Center Theater revived the play, on Broadway no less, and what happened? The acclaim was unanimous. Vincent Canby of the New York Times went so far as to say that “A Delicate Balance” made “Three Tall Women,” Albee’s 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winner, “look as bland and unthreatening as a Saturday night dinner at your average upper-middle-class country club.”

Go figure. It was “Three Tall Women,” his comeback, that had stopped everyone in their tracks.

Meanwhile, anybody who sees Barbara Sorenson’s stinging portrait of Claire, the terminal drunk in ART’s production of “A Delicate Balance,” would have to agree with Canby. Sorenson’s performance, a theatrical tour d’horizon, not only shows us the breadth of the role and takes this production to a higher level of sophistication than readily seen at ART, but also underscores Albee’s creation of a character capable of taking your head off with a swipe of the tongue.

“A smoke, a sip and a good hard surface,” as Claire says, is all she needs to do her stuff, a shrewd line lewdly meant. Not that Claire necessarily gets the best lines. Agnes, her sister and rival in life and love, gets more than her fair share, noting, for example, that she can’t stand the sort of suicidal people (read: alcoholics) “who want to die and take their whole life doing it.”

Unfortunately, Teri Ciranna’s Agnes lacks the sort of stage authority that might lend credence to the notion that she’s the fulcrum for the family’s delicate balance between madness and sanity. Lacking that, she is no match for Sorenson’s Claire, which deprives us of a full appreciation of the play’s main attraction.

Still, the coldblooded rivalry between the sisters is hard to miss. And it’s just one part of the show. Plenty of other dramatic material also keeps us interested.

There’s Agnes and Tobias’ 40ish daughter, Julia, who has left her fourth husband and come back home to regain her balance; and there’s Edna and Harry, friends of Agnes and Tobias for more than 40 years, who have dropped in and taken over Julia’s old room--permanently, it seems--pursued by unnamed demons.

Sorenson, who brings wit, irony and vivacity to her role, offers an evening of grande dame theatrics worth the price of admission. The rest of the cast gives earnest, game performances.

Laurie T. Freed has directed with a deft hand, imparting a natural fluidity to the in-the-round presentation without calling attention to her methods.

Technically, the production is also one of ART’s best in recent memory. The costumes, scenic and lighting designs are professionally apt, and the stage of this small storefront theater has never seemed roomier.

“A Delicate Balance” is not an easy play to do. Testing its limits with this revival, ART has found a delicate balance of its own.

*

* “A Delicate Balance,” Alternative Repertory Theatre, 1636 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Ends March 9. $16-$18. (714) 836-7929. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Barbara Sorenson: Claire

John Gilbert: Tobias

Teri Ciranna: Agnes

Kathy Blumenfeld: Julia

Joanne Underwood: Edna

John A. Razzano: Harry

An Alternative Repertory Theatre production of a play by Edward Albee. Director: Laurie T. Freed. Scenic design: Joanne LeCocq. Costume design: Michael Pacciorini. Lighting design: Jamie McAllister. Sound design: Doug Leonard. Stage manager: William Wilson.