In Edward Albee’s 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winner, “A Delicate Balance, ” the drinks come in two varieties: those that are being made and those that are being consumed. It’s saying something when members of the audience for this rock-solid Remy Bumppo production, directed by James Bohnen, can be heard counting the drinks—the brandies, the martinis, the bourbons, the screwdrivers—and yet only one character is actually a self-professed drunk. A domestic drama soaked in battery acid, the play debuted four years after Albee’s other notoriously alcoholic scorcher, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” which opens a week from Saturday in a revival at Court Theatre. Taken together, it is a veritable Albee festival all over again. (Last fall, the Goodman staged a fest highlighting the playwright.) At the center of the story is a middle-aged patrician couple, emotionally withdrawn Tobias (David Darlow, in his most understated and nuanced performance to date) and cool, well-mannered Agnes (Annabel Armour, graceful and quietly strident), whose home is invaded by a series of unwanted guests. Striving to maintain a sense of duty and decorum, they are incapable of throwing anyone out, including their infantile daughter, Julia (Linda Gillum), who is on her way to a fourth divorce, Agnes’s sister Claire (Deanna Dunagan), the most honest person in the house despite her constant inebriation, and family friends Harry and Edna (Joe Van Slyke and Wendy Robie) who have showed up complaining of an mysterious terror in their lives. Crammed together, emotional claustrophobia envelops the whole lot. Soon, everyone’s deep-seated personality flaws are exposed to one and all. They’re not left with much by the end, and all they can do is hope for that moment when “memory takes over and corrects facts, makes it tolerable.” (Nina Metz)
This production is now closed.
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