DATE: Friday, April 4, 1997                 TAG: 9704020159

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 18   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: THEATER REVIEW 

SOURCE: Montague Gammon III 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

``DELICATE BALANCE'' HAS SKILLFUL ACTORS AND LYRICAL SPEECH

The Little Theatre of Virginia Beach production of ``A Delicate Balance'' provides a potent reminder of Edward Albee's ability to write lyrical speech and lets the cast members exercise their considerable acting skills.

For all the astounding beauty of the verbiage, and the power with which the actors create their characters, the script also proves that Albee is neither Harold Pinter nor Samuel Beckett, no matter how hard he tries to follow those great authors.

A generation after the anguish of existence and the alienation of humankind became playwrights' favorite themes, such concerns seem singularly unimportant.

When the distraught characters are conspicuously wealthy, sympathy for all their half-articulated spiritual complaints diminishes abruptly.

Wally Doyle plays Tobias and August Armstrong plays his wife, Agnes, a couple past middle age whose home provides a haven for her hard-drinking sister, Claire.

An eternally detached observer, Claire claims not to be an alcoholic but ``a drunk.'' As played by Angie Aresco, she is by far the wittiest, most aware of the lot. The family also includes 40ish daughter, Julia, who comes home after separating from her fourth husband.

Carmen Vogt and Sam Hakim take the roles of Edna and Harry, who suddenly show up on the doorstep fleeing some unnameable ``terror'' they felt while sitting in their home. These two new refugees, who are called ``best friends'' of the first pair so often the phrase becomes a refrain, assume that they can just move in, no matter whom they displace.

There's a lot of nattering about the long dead love lives of both couples, references to the childhood death of Tobias' and Agnes' son, implications of infidelity and conflict at various intensities.

Armstrong presents a controlled, thoughtful reading of a troubled woman whose emotions are mysterious. Agnes' continuing love for her husband is evident in a couple of touching conversations that are Armstrong's best scenes, but Albee has left much of her psyche unexplained.

Doyle is often cast as a quiet, thoughtful sort, and carries those roles off well. As Tobias, he gets to cut loose with a fierce, sustained speech that reveals he can summon up intensity to match his subtlety.

It's more the playwright's doing than the actors' that Edna and Harry come across as nonentities.

They are a generic, vaguely lost, well off retiree and housewife saddled with one receding hairline and one bad wig. Vogt and Hakim do about as much as anyone could expect to keep them from being nothing but whining ciphers.

Misty Vredenburg looks a bit young to be the quadruple divorcee, Julia, but she approaches the role with discipline and energy. Like Doyle, she has an emotional passage that she carries off especially well.

Claire is the most interesting character that Albee put in this play, and Aresco captures all the detail one could hope for. Her performance has delicacy of control and shaded variations that make it a special delight.

Director Bob Nelson joined with Jim Mitchell to design an especially attractive set that suggests the upper crust conventionality in which these characters have passed all their lives.

It all adds up to a lovely shell wrapped around an insubstantial core. The acting and poetic lines form the prettiest of wrappers.

The contents of the package recall what Ms. Bankhead famously said years ago about another play. ``There is less in this than meets the eye,'' though one hastens to add that what meets the eyes and ears can be interesting for its own sake. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

AT A GLANCE

What: A Delicate Balance, by Edward Albee

When: 8 p.m. today and Saturday and April 11 and 12; 3 p.m.

Sunday and April 13

Where: Little Theatre of Virginia Beach, 24th Street and

Barberton Drive.

Tickets: 428-9233

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