A Delicate Balance
From: Thursday, 5th May 2011
To: Saturday, 2 July 2011
Our Review: 
Your Reviews:
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Synopsis
Urban socialites Agnes and Tobias appear to inhabit a glamorous world of drinks parties and social clubs. The return home of their recently divorced daughter, the constant presence of Agnes’ alcoholic sister and the impromptu late-night arrival of some close friends, begin to peel away this veneer. As their lives become increasingly claustrophobic, the characters battle with their fear of stepping into the real world, opting instead for the undemanding familiarity of their own drawing room.
Our Review:
Michael Coveney - 13 May 2011
What, exactly, is the delicate balance in A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee’s strange and upsetting play that re-invented domestic comedy as bleak and mythical tragedy forty-five years ago?
Is it to be found in the mixture of that comedy with a nameless terror? Or is it the psychological equilibrium which eludes each character in turn, the surface of the pond never still as one stone after another is tossed in?
Albee remains best known for the earlier Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but this play matches it in the dark existential night of the soul stakes over a dismal weekend in the Connecticut country house of Tobias and Agnes.
They are joined by Agnes’s alcoholic sister, Claire, then a couple of uninvited neighbours, Harry and Edna, who are too frightened to stay home, and their daughter Julia, in flight from another wrecked marriage, her fourth.
It’s fourteen years since Eileen Atkins and [M...
Latest User Review
Paul Wallis - 26 June 2011:
No one can doubt the quality of the acting, the staging or the writing with this play. Edward Albee's masterpiece gets a brilliant revival in this Almeida production - a very dark piece indeed which at times left me wondering what it was actually about? What is in no doubt, is the quality of this production - the set is excellent and lends itself to the darkness of the play. The acting is top notch. Tim Piggott Smith rises to the occasion as do Penelope Wilton (almost unrecogniseable) and the always excellent Imelda Staunton. Stella casting indeed with strong support. Whilst I still question what the play is all about, the quality, especially in the acting, is beyond doubt....
Cast
Penelope Wilton (Agnes)
Imelda Staunton (Claire)
Lucy Cohu (Julia)
Diana Hardcastle (Edna)
Ian McElhinney (Harry)
Tim Pigott-Smith (Tobias)
Creative
Edward Albee (Author)
Coutts & Co (Corporate Sponsor)
Almeida Theatre (Producer)
James Macdonald (Director)
Laura Hopkins (Design)
Guy Hoare (Lighting)
Ian Dickinson (Sound)
Information
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