Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe can be summed up in one word: dark. What starts off as a somewhat quirky evening quickly balloons into a tragic tale of woe filled with some of the most dysfunctional characters I’ve ever seen.

The actors portraying the characters, however, did a wonderful job, and none more so than John L. Gilson. All four actors came together to create very realistic interactions, but the script was like some strange hybrid between “The Twilight Zone” and “One Life to Live.”

Much like any soap opera, skeletons were popping out of closets all over the place. By the end of the play though, I was wishing that they all could have stayed where they were when it all began.

The plot basically involved a husband who was a professor at a university. Unfortunately, he had the poor sense to marry the daughter of the president of the university, a decision that caused him all sorts of difficulty. The relationship between these two characters can best be explained as an ongoing verbal sparring match.

A younger couple, who had just joined the university family, came over for drinks following a faculty party given by the president of the university. The entire late-night get-together revolved around the jibes the older couple kept taking at each other, with the occasionally painful attack on the young couple thrown in for good measure.

If there had been one somewhat decent, or at least sane, character in the tiny cast, I wonder if the play may have ended earlier. There seemed to be some unspoken rule about leaving in the middle of the hurtful games that ensued. As a result, the audience had to stay put for four hours, wondering if it would ever be over.

Otherwise, the sets weren’t anything extraordinary, but were passable. A few small details seemed to be missing, but the set did add to the atmosphere of the entire play.