In a world plagued by ever-dwindling attention spans and a town with even shorter ones, it’s a huge ask for an audience to sit through a lengthy play, let alone enjoy it. And if you’re brave (or foolish) enough to put on a three hour show, you’ll never be able to avoid the natural follow-up: is it worth it?
Edward Albee’s play is a long, winding, and slightly surreal one. A Delicate Balance, which premiered in 1966, asks you to examine (and scrutinize) a forgotten way of life: the upper-crust American suburban elites who flit to and from the country club to town to someone’s large estate home. In the post-war period of late 1950s America, this way of life was beginning to largely dissipate. The older generations clung to their etiquette lessons and polished social images, while their children were beginning to experiment with— oh fun!— drugs and divorces. With a widening generational and class gap, right in the midst of the American civil rights movement, the state of unrest in Albee’s piece is undeniably palpable. All it would take to set these characters off is a slight nudge. And in A Delicate Balance, this comes with the arrival of three uninvited house guests.
Tobias and Agnes, the play’s central couple of empty nesters, are played brilliantly by Buster Ratcliffe van der Geest and Orsolya Haynes. Already plagued by the constant presence of Agnes’ alcoholic sister Claire (Keenan Parker), the two are soon further invaded by their adult daughter Julia (Hannah Glen) and their lifelong friends, Edna (Lila Ahnger) and Harry (Rupert Carter). Julia is on the run from her fourth failed marriage, while Harry and Edna are fleeing a nameless and unexplainable terror. They are simply afraid. It’s crazy, it’s confusing, and it’s funny as hell.
The question remains, though. I mean, three hours. Is it worth it? And without a shadow of a doubt, this production of A Delicate Balance, directed by Poppy Kimitris and produced by Ava Pegg-Davies, certainly was.
Nearly from the moment the lights rose, I was absolutely locked in. I stayed hooked through not one but two intervals, and all three hours in total. What a feat. The tension throughout the piece, not to mention its humanity, was electric. It was thought-provoking, compelling, extravagant, hilarious, and perhaps most of all— truly, madly, deeply performed. Bravo.
The one niggling decision that occasionally pulled me out of this production was setting the piece in England. While I would commend the ambition to adapt, I think perhaps setting the play in an equally restless period in English history might have offered more to the undercurrent of Albee’s writing, rather than staying true to the original 50s/60s setting. At times, I lost what I felt was the heart of the piece with the departure of its historico-cultural context, and in it, the criticism and interaction it was asking of me as an audience member. Albee’s text tightly wraps questions of race, class, and human purpose-finding within one tense living room. While the family drama, naturalism, and tension are immediately apparent in Kimitris’ production, with a bit more care and attention to the play’s subtext here, you could have a truly professional and evocative play on your hands.
As it stands in Kimitris’ version, which I had the pleasure of seeing this last Friday in the Barron at The Byre Theatre, with both the tech and set pared back and minimalist, the acting is without a doubt the star. The actors own these characters both in silence and in speaking throughout, holding their space with a profound confidence in their roles, with Parker especially shining in this regard. From the moment she stepped on stage, she was Claire. With every liquored sip, I forgot she was a student, an actor, a young woman, or even an American herself. Carter was a stilted, stuttered, and stiff scene-stealer as Harry, bringing both an undeniable comedy and an unsettling edge to the show, while Haynes’ Agnes consistently grounded the play’s sillier gaffs with her profound emotional ability and naturalism.
The standout performance, though, has to go to Ratcliffe van der Geest, whose depiction of Tobias was so layered and rich that it stopped me dead in my tracks. To hold the weight of that world on his shoulders. To be told over and over that “it’s [his] choice” what will happen next. And to bear it with tremendous talent and grace. Bravo, Buster. Bravo, Poppy. Bravo, A Delicate Balance.