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Photo by Matthew Tippins

Although they are touching each other, you sense tension between Agnes (Patti Gardner) and Tobias (Tom Wahl) in Island City Stage’s first-rate production of Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, A Delicate Balance.

By AARON KRAUSE

Unless you have been hiding in a hole or cave somewhere, you know that we are living during an anxious time. In fact, maybe that is why you have been hiding.

Indeed, natural disasters, division, uncertainty, lies and ineptitude in government, illness, and violence can combine to cause an uneasy feeling that, at first, you may not be able to explain. Therefore, we can sympathize with fictional characters such as Harry and Edna in Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, A Delicate Balance. They leave their home after a fearful feeling envelops them, and they seek refuge in their best friends’ upscale suburban home. While we never learn the source of their anxiety, we may attribute their feelings to overwhelm or a general unease about life’s uncertainties and hardships – the kind we are experiencing today in 2025.

Harry and Edna, as well as other characters in A Delicate Balance, come to vibrant and believable life in Island City Stage’s (ICS) grand professional production of the play. Since the production opened on Jan. 16, many performances have sold out. And you may have a hard time finding tickets to the remaining performances. The production ends on Feb. 9. But if you value great acting, it pays to at least try to buy tickets. The production takes place in ICS’s intimate theater in Wilton Manors.

ICS has assembled a cast of top-notch South Florida performers for this production. If you frequently attend live theater productions in the region, surely you are familiar with names such as Patti Gardner, Tom Wahl, Margery Lowe, Christopher Dreeson, and Sabrina Lynn Gore. New York-based performer Betty Ann Hunt Strain, whom you may have recently seen as Boo in Boca Stage’s production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, is also part of the cast.

A Delicate Balance, a three-act play, runs for nearly three hours, and includes two intermissions. But do not worry. Under Michael Leeds’ intelligent direction, it does not feel like three hours. Rather, the production proceeds at a pace that seems just right; it does not speed by and neither does it crawl. Impactful pauses, smart staging, and attention to detail highlight Leeds’ direction.

When the play opens, Agnes and Tobias have been married for decades. They seem to be content with their lives. After all, they live in a gorgeous, comfortable home (designed realistically and with detail by Robert Wolin). In addition, they appear to have enough money to live a satisfying life. But you cannot always “judge a book by its cover” as the trite saying goes. The truth is, Agnes and Tobias are usually not a happy couple. For instance, they are not warm toward each other and do not engage in physical affection. Consider the following:

Agnes: There was a stranger in my room last night.

Tobias: Who?

Agnes: You.

Agnes and Tobias live together with Claire, Agnes’s younger sister. The younger woman is an alcoholic and can be acerbic. Unfortunately, the two siblings do not get along.

One Friday night, Edna and Harry unexpectedly drop by their best friends’ home. As it turns out, Edna and Harry were sitting in their own home when unexplained anxiety gripped them and would not let go. They felt terrified, so they came to their best friends’ home — and they do not plan to leave.

While, at least at first, Agnes and Tobias welcome their long-time best friends, turmoil soon follows. That is because Agnes and Tobias’s daughter, Julia, arrives home upset because she just left her fourth husband. And, to make matters worse for Julia, Harry and Edna are staying in her room.

While Albee focuses on the institution of marriage in A Delicate Balance, he also zeroes in on friendship and what such a relationship entails. Specifically, if two or more people are friends, what does that entitle them to? Does friendship have its limits? Do you even truly know your friends? In the play, although the two couples have been friends for more than 40 years, they may not know each other as much as they may think.

Loss is another theme in A Delicate Balance. Specifically, the play opens with Agnes saying that she may lose her mind. As it is, she and her husband are trying not to lose their footing on a life that could slip out of control merely with the arrival of their best friends. When you add Julia’s chaotic arrival to the mix, the delicate balance her parents are trying to maintain could take a tumble.

In addition to losing their intimacy, Agnes and Tobias have also lost a son. As for Julia, she lost a brother, four husbands (although the marriages ended in divorce, not death) as well as her room.

A Delicate Balance explores life’s fragility, as well as the complexities of human relationships. The play may move us to explore our own relationships, beliefs, and attitudes. If you are the type of person who, for instance, tries to maintain peace by avoiding confrontations, then you and Agnes have something in common. But is this the way to live? A Delicate Balance makes you think about such things.

While A Delicate Balance is stimulating it is also funny. For instance, Agnes sarcastically remarks “That’s very nice” when Claire insists that she is not an alcoholic. But Agnes also lists various instances of Claire’s drunken behavior.

Whether they are speaking Albee’s funny lines or more serious ones, the actors deliver strong performances.

Gardner believably embodies a tense upper class woman harboring superior airs. But this gifted performer also makes us keenly sense Agnes’s loneliness and allows the character’s few instances of humanity to also shine through.

Wahl, as usual, delivers a powerful performance as Tobias, particularly when desperation overtakes the character. Watch him shake, hear him fight through tears, listen as raw pain fills his voice, and try to resist ascending the stage to comfort Tobias. Wahl also plays Tobias’s more subdued moments with impressive naturalism. You sense the tension between Tobias and his wife, and the ice breaking just a bit when they touch each other.

Dreeson’s vivid facial expressions and expressive voice suggest a combination of sadness, guilt, modesty, and insecurity as Harry. It almost looks and sounds as though this pathetic man is apologizing for living when he and his wife enter the setting. But Dreeson is also effective at conveying joy during brighter moments. And when Harry is happy, you are too because Dreeson makes him a sympathetic character.

Lowe makes you feel Edna’s terror as she arrives at Agnes and Tobias’s home. Then, a moment later, it is as though nothing ever bothered her. Unapologetically, she sits on the couch doing needlepoint, looking content and minding her business as though she belongs there as much as the homeowners.

Gore is convincingly intense as Julia, barging into her childhood home like a speeding bulldozer, leaning forward with aggression and yelling at anyone and everyone. As Gore plays her, we sense the character’s frustration at just about everything with her life. Gore’s Julia, at times, is like a spoiled child who cannot get her way. At other times, Gore turns the character into an adult bully.

With watery eyes and a sad demeanor, Hunt Strain observes all that goes on in the house. In fact, the performer proves to be at least a double threat. She adeptly plays the accordion during more upbeat moments.

As soon as we look at the stage, we can tell that wealthy people live in Wolin’s depiction of the home. The place looks spacious, opulent, and homey. Artwork dots the walls, a patterned red rug graces the floor, and a liquor tray rests nearby. Colors such as brown, white, black, and dark red help breathe vibrant life into this impressively realistic set.

Ardean Landhuis’s realistic lighting illuminates the set and actors, while W. Emil White’s costumes seem appropriate for the time period and the characters. Also, David Hart’s sound design produces a clear sound. Certainly, it allows us to hear and understand the performers.

True, A Delicate Balance is not a “gay play.” Therefore, you may wonder why ICS, which usually stages LGBTQ+-themed work, has mounted a production of Albee’s play. Well, for starters, Albee (1928-2016) was gay. “Our associate director, Michael Leeds, has wanted to direct this play for many years,” ICS Artistic Director Andy Rogow wrote in the program. “If that weren’t reason enough, it was also a no-brainer that we produce one of the most important playwrights of the 20^th century, who also happened to be gay.”

Dark, witty, and biting dialogue often marks Albee’s work. “A Delicate Balance” earned Albee the first of three Pulitzer Prizes during his career. He is credited with introducing Theatre of the Absurd to the American stage. Plays within this movement explore the idea that life is meaningless, and people cannot control their fate. Perhaps that is how some people feel in 2025 with everything going on.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “A Delicate Balance” by Edward Albee

WHEN: Through Sunday, Feb. 9.

WHERE: Island City Stage, 2304 Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors.

INFORMATION: Go to www.islandcitystage.org.

Photo by Matthew Tippins

Harry (Christopher Dreeson) and Edna (Margery Lowe) look shaken and uncomfortable when they first arrive at play’s setting.