Kondrat starts in 'Woolf'

The room inside the room resembled a typical apartment living space. Circling a faded blue rug was mismatched furniture, nicked wooden tables and a rolling cart carrying rapidly emptying alcohol bottles.

Inside the Rose Firebay theater of the Ivy Tech Community College Waldron Center was the room of Martha and George, the characters of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?”

Directed by Patricia McKee, the play is in production at 7:30 p.m. every night until Feb. 9 at the Waldron Center, 122 South Walnut St.

Starring Diane Kondrat as Martha and Bill Simmons as George, the play is a community farewell to Kondrat for her final performance in Bloomington.

The play, which opened on Broadway in 1962, was an unusual play for the time. Including only four characters and lasting more than three hours, the play also uses controversial language and sexual themes.

The play is about a late-night gathering between two couples. The two men, working as professors for a small New England college, and their wives begin the party with humorous banter, clinking glasses and a few harmless games.

The younger couple, Honey and Nick, played by IU seniors Emily Mange and Matthew Roland, is invited to the house as guests, but later evolve into victims as the laughter changes to profanity and the abuse switches toward them.

Throughout the night, as everyone’s glasses empty and refill, the games turn into verbal and physical abuse, lies are uncovered and painful secrets are exposed.

Played by Kondrat, Martha is a loud, flamboyant woman, owning the stage and demanding all eyes on her with boisterous expressions and witty side remarks.

Kondrat began acting her junior year of high school. People were rapt with her performance as Maria in West Side Story in her honors English class, she said.
Kondrat never did community or professional theater as a child, but she said the heightened energy and focus she felt in a room when she performed lured her in.

“Nothing compares to live stage performance,” she said.

Along with acting, Kondrat also spent many years with directing, producing, administering and writing. She is an experienced voice talent.  

She arrived in Bloomington in 1987 with her family and began producing theater with her own small company, Oasis Production, in 1988.

Thanking McKee, an exceptional director from San Francisco, and Simmons, a professional actor, Kondrat also named several IU graduates who worked well with her during the play.

The director, Paul Daily, an IU MFA directing student, came up with the idea of the farewell performance for Kondrat, she said.

“I heard from Diane that she was leaving Bloomington last spring,” Daily said. “I knew it would be a great loss to the performing community and immediately thought that if there was any way I could honor what she’s done for the community, I would do so.

“Diane is an inspiration onstage, a professional offstage and has been an integral part of the arts community for 25 years here.”

Mange, who played the frail, brandy-sipping Honey, is a senior at IU. Triple majoring in theater and drama, linguistics and germanic studies with a minor in Arabic, Mange has trained at the Moscow Art Theater School in Moscow and in Chicago at the Second City Training Center.

Drawn to Albee’s production, Kondrat and Daily decided to do “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” Daily said.

“The role of Martha is an once-in-a-lifetime role, and the play itself is one of the greatest works of the 20th century,” he said.

Being her final performance in Bloomington, Kondrat said she was was grateful to play Martha.

“I’m so happy to be leaving with an explosion,” she said. “The show is a killer.”

Kondrat’s performance received a standing ovation at the end of the show.

“Absolutely stunning,” said Janiece Jutte, a friend of Kondrat’s. “She is multi-dimensional. I have seen her a lot of different things.”

Kondrat will star in one more play in Indianapolis before leaving in May to her new home in Portland.

“I’m pursuing natural beauty and answering the call of my children, who live in the area,” she said. “Portland is a great theater town too.”