Paul Gross and Martha Burns
This is for the Due South fans. Paul Gross and his wife Martha Burns have been married nearly 40 years and in a recent interview said they were always finding out something new about the other person.
They're rehearsing and going to star a new stage production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Toronto in January of 2025. Here's a picture of them together.
Here's a link to the interview.
https://torontolife.com/culture/paul-gross-martha-burns-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf-qa/
For those who don't want to follow an external link, here's the interview.
“Our relationship frustrations get a healthy workout onstage”: Paul Gross and Martha Burns on their new production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The couple talks portraying a toxic marriage onstage, why they’ve rarely worked together and what makes the 1962 play so relevant today
By Courtney Shea| Photography by Duane Cole
| January 17, 2025
Martha Burns and Paul Gross are the ultimate power couple of Canadian theatre, with endless credits, awards and 37 years of marriage between them. They have rarely worked together over the years, but when the opportunity to co-star in one of the 20th century’s most iconic plays (and an Oscar-winning movie) came along, they couldn’t resist. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee follows a night in the lives of George and Martha, two American academics who become increasingly unhinged over the course of several hours (and even more cocktails). Here, Burns and Gross discuss their approaches to acting drunk and how playing a volatile couple is a form of marriage therapy.
Happy New Year, if it’s not too late to say that. Did you have a nice holiday?
Paul Gross: It was fabulous. We have a place outside of the city. The kids came home from New York, and we had snow and a forest, so it was a beautiful time.
Martha Burns: Usually, in the theatre, if you’re rehearsing in December, you’re lucky to get Christmas and Boxing Day off, but Canadian Stage gave us the full week off, which was wonderful.
Any favourite holiday traditions?
Burns: Our son makes the most incredible stuffing. It’s a big production that he works on all day. I look forward to the stuffing even more than to the turkey.
Gross: We did our turkey on a rotisserie this year, which was new and really good.
How about New Year’s resolutions?
Burns: To keep calm in the tumult, to have gratitude that we get to do a play to kick off the year-a play that has so much resonance today.
Gross: I just resolved to know what I’m saying onstage.
Burns: That’s a good plan. And maybe not such a given as your brain ages.
How did this production come together? Were you fans of the 1966 movie with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton?
Burns: I was really young when the movie came out, so I saw it later-probably as a young actor, when I was on my “watch everything that Mike Nichols has ever done” kick. I’ve seen the stage production a few times, but not recently.
Gross: I don’t remember the film terribly well. I think I probably saw the stage version first. I’ve seen a few productions over the years, so I knew the general story and remembered bits and pieces. The idea to do the show came from Can Stage’s Brendan Healy. He sent us an email.
Burns: Paul was really enthusiastic from the start. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do something so big.
Gross: There aren’t many plays that are as extraordinary as Virginia Woolf. If you get the opportunity, you’re going to take it seriously. And then we had the opportunity to do it together.
Burns: This was last year. At the time, I was looking forward to seeing The Goat, another Albee play, at Stratford, and I thought, Okay, are we having a bit of an Albee resurgence? The way he was observing his country in the 1960s for Virginia Woolf, in the ’90s for The Goat-reading them again, you get this chill of recognition of the themes of truth and illusion, who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. It’s so…
Revoltingly relevant?
Burns: Yes, that’s a good way to put it.
You’ve been married for 37 years but have worked together only a couple of times. I gather that’s been a rule?
Burns: When we were younger, it wasn’t so much a rule as something that started when our kids were little and it was better if one of us wasn’t working. One of the attractions of this project was doing it together, taking on a big challenge and feeling really secure about who you’re sharing it with.
Gross: I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. Particularly with the rehearsal times being so short and there being so much to take in.
I guess the bonus of living with your co-star is that you can run lines whenever you want.
Burns: Oh, sure, we run lines everywhere.
Gross: In the shower.
The relationship between your characters is so intense. Was there ever a concern about opening your marriage to that level of toxicity?
Gross: The scale of violence and volatility in the Martha and George relationship-I would hope that’s foreign to most people. But of course we have our own past to draw on to get a foothold into that world.
Burns: It’s funny because, when we worked together on Slings and Arrows, our characters were also at war. You take the minor infractions that you experience in coupledom-Why am I emptying the dishwasher?-and rather than bitching about them, those frustrations get a healthy workout onstage.
Gross: The other thing is that the material is hilarious at times, which is part of what makes Albee so great. He knows that the audience needs a break from the intensity, so you get these extremely funny moments.
Burns: It’s the laughter of recognition. What’s cracked us up in rehearsal with this particular snipe or that particular catty observation is that it’s all familiar. We’ve all done it. We’ve all been on the receiving end of it.
Martha, I’m sure you’re aware that a lot of Canadians think you’re married to the perfect Mountie and you’re kind of pulling back the curtain.
Burns: A mountie who doesn’t own a dishwasher.
Gross: I do the dishes.
Burns: When, though? When?
Both of your characters are also extremely well lubricated. Any tips on how to play drunk?
Gross: Don’t do it. If the writing is great, you don’t have to. I did a play before this called Seafarer. It’s an Irish play, and the Irish characters are all drunk, but as actors, we never even talked about that. People would come up after and say, “Wow, you guys were so drunk in that play,” but we weren’t.
Burns: One of my acting teachers said that most people who are drunk are trying to communicate that they’re not drunk, so I think about that. There are also different kinds of drunk: there’s the person who randomly drinks too much and then there’s the drunk of someone who drinks every day.
Did you try running the lines after a few glasses of wine?
Gross: Oh, yeah, we got hammered every day during rehearsals.
Burns: Some of the sections are such a killer to memorize because they’re so repetitive, but then you realize Albee is just writing how you talk when you’re drunk. All of those speech patterns, how you behave in a group after two drinks, after four drinks, who’s had four drinks and who’s still on their first-that’s all in the writing. It’s dazzling.
You mentioned that the themes of the play have an eerie 2025 relevance.
Burns: I see it as a story about truth and lies. What’s true? Whose version of reality is true? What is a person capable of making up to hurt someone? It’s so present in the play, but how will people receive it? I’m excited to see the reaction. For me, the work has hit differently every time I’ve seen it. I even wondered about the decision to stage it at this time of year, when everything can feel a bit bleak.
And that was before you knew that opening night more or less lines up with inauguration day in the US.
Gross: The thing about a play like this is that it absorbs whatever is going on at the time. You see your world through the prism of the play. A lot of it is about disillusion and truth and the politics of love. Today everyone is worried about AI, whereas in the play there’s the same concern about biologists fooling around with structured cells and genetics. Great plays are terrific mirrors, and they leave the audience with lots to talk about.
At the beginning of this season, Can Stage announced ambitious new targets in terms of getting Toronto audiences back to the theatre. What’s your message for the hesitant?
Gross: Come on back-it’s great. If you’ve forgotten what a wonderful experience it is to sit in a theatre and watch a play, try it again. You’ll remember. And this play is going to be fantastic. Martha is going to be so good.
Burns: So is Paul.
Your co-stars Mac Fyfe and Hailey Gillis are also a real-life couple. Have you started double-dating?
Gross: We’ve started swinging. Every night.
Burns: That’s a great rumour to start.
Put a tassel on the garage door.
Burns: What’s that?
I think it tells other people that you’re swingers. You hang a tassel on your garage-or maybe you leave the garage door ajar.
Burns: I’m going to have to start paying attention around the neighbourhood.
Gross: So that’s what’s going on in our garage.
They're rehearsing and going to star a new stage production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Toronto in January of 2025. Here's a picture of them together.
Here's a link to the interview.
https://torontolife.com/culture/paul-gross-martha-burns-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf-qa/
For those who don't want to follow an external link, here's the interview.
“Our relationship frustrations get a healthy workout onstage”: Paul Gross and Martha Burns on their new production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The couple talks portraying a toxic marriage onstage, why they’ve rarely worked together and what makes the 1962 play so relevant today
By Courtney Shea| Photography by Duane Cole
| January 17, 2025
Martha Burns and Paul Gross are the ultimate power couple of Canadian theatre, with endless credits, awards and 37 years of marriage between them. They have rarely worked together over the years, but when the opportunity to co-star in one of the 20th century’s most iconic plays (and an Oscar-winning movie) came along, they couldn’t resist. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee follows a night in the lives of George and Martha, two American academics who become increasingly unhinged over the course of several hours (and even more cocktails). Here, Burns and Gross discuss their approaches to acting drunk and how playing a volatile couple is a form of marriage therapy.
Happy New Year, if it’s not too late to say that. Did you have a nice holiday?
Paul Gross: It was fabulous. We have a place outside of the city. The kids came home from New York, and we had snow and a forest, so it was a beautiful time.
Martha Burns: Usually, in the theatre, if you’re rehearsing in December, you’re lucky to get Christmas and Boxing Day off, but Canadian Stage gave us the full week off, which was wonderful.
Any favourite holiday traditions?
Burns: Our son makes the most incredible stuffing. It’s a big production that he works on all day. I look forward to the stuffing even more than to the turkey.
Gross: We did our turkey on a rotisserie this year, which was new and really good.
How about New Year’s resolutions?
Burns: To keep calm in the tumult, to have gratitude that we get to do a play to kick off the year-a play that has so much resonance today.
Gross: I just resolved to know what I’m saying onstage.
Burns: That’s a good plan. And maybe not such a given as your brain ages.
How did this production come together? Were you fans of the 1966 movie with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton?
Burns: I was really young when the movie came out, so I saw it later-probably as a young actor, when I was on my “watch everything that Mike Nichols has ever done” kick. I’ve seen the stage production a few times, but not recently.
Gross: I don’t remember the film terribly well. I think I probably saw the stage version first. I’ve seen a few productions over the years, so I knew the general story and remembered bits and pieces. The idea to do the show came from Can Stage’s Brendan Healy. He sent us an email.
Burns: Paul was really enthusiastic from the start. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do something so big.
Gross: There aren’t many plays that are as extraordinary as Virginia Woolf. If you get the opportunity, you’re going to take it seriously. And then we had the opportunity to do it together.
Burns: This was last year. At the time, I was looking forward to seeing The Goat, another Albee play, at Stratford, and I thought, Okay, are we having a bit of an Albee resurgence? The way he was observing his country in the 1960s for Virginia Woolf, in the ’90s for The Goat-reading them again, you get this chill of recognition of the themes of truth and illusion, who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. It’s so…
Revoltingly relevant?
Burns: Yes, that’s a good way to put it.
You’ve been married for 37 years but have worked together only a couple of times. I gather that’s been a rule?
Burns: When we were younger, it wasn’t so much a rule as something that started when our kids were little and it was better if one of us wasn’t working. One of the attractions of this project was doing it together, taking on a big challenge and feeling really secure about who you’re sharing it with.
Gross: I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. Particularly with the rehearsal times being so short and there being so much to take in.
I guess the bonus of living with your co-star is that you can run lines whenever you want.
Burns: Oh, sure, we run lines everywhere.
Gross: In the shower.
The relationship between your characters is so intense. Was there ever a concern about opening your marriage to that level of toxicity?
Gross: The scale of violence and volatility in the Martha and George relationship-I would hope that’s foreign to most people. But of course we have our own past to draw on to get a foothold into that world.
Burns: It’s funny because, when we worked together on Slings and Arrows, our characters were also at war. You take the minor infractions that you experience in coupledom-Why am I emptying the dishwasher?-and rather than bitching about them, those frustrations get a healthy workout onstage.
Gross: The other thing is that the material is hilarious at times, which is part of what makes Albee so great. He knows that the audience needs a break from the intensity, so you get these extremely funny moments.
Burns: It’s the laughter of recognition. What’s cracked us up in rehearsal with this particular snipe or that particular catty observation is that it’s all familiar. We’ve all done it. We’ve all been on the receiving end of it.
Martha, I’m sure you’re aware that a lot of Canadians think you’re married to the perfect Mountie and you’re kind of pulling back the curtain.
Burns: A mountie who doesn’t own a dishwasher.
Gross: I do the dishes.
Burns: When, though? When?
Both of your characters are also extremely well lubricated. Any tips on how to play drunk?
Gross: Don’t do it. If the writing is great, you don’t have to. I did a play before this called Seafarer. It’s an Irish play, and the Irish characters are all drunk, but as actors, we never even talked about that. People would come up after and say, “Wow, you guys were so drunk in that play,” but we weren’t.
Burns: One of my acting teachers said that most people who are drunk are trying to communicate that they’re not drunk, so I think about that. There are also different kinds of drunk: there’s the person who randomly drinks too much and then there’s the drunk of someone who drinks every day.
Did you try running the lines after a few glasses of wine?
Gross: Oh, yeah, we got hammered every day during rehearsals.
Burns: Some of the sections are such a killer to memorize because they’re so repetitive, but then you realize Albee is just writing how you talk when you’re drunk. All of those speech patterns, how you behave in a group after two drinks, after four drinks, who’s had four drinks and who’s still on their first-that’s all in the writing. It’s dazzling.
You mentioned that the themes of the play have an eerie 2025 relevance.
Burns: I see it as a story about truth and lies. What’s true? Whose version of reality is true? What is a person capable of making up to hurt someone? It’s so present in the play, but how will people receive it? I’m excited to see the reaction. For me, the work has hit differently every time I’ve seen it. I even wondered about the decision to stage it at this time of year, when everything can feel a bit bleak.
And that was before you knew that opening night more or less lines up with inauguration day in the US.
Gross: The thing about a play like this is that it absorbs whatever is going on at the time. You see your world through the prism of the play. A lot of it is about disillusion and truth and the politics of love. Today everyone is worried about AI, whereas in the play there’s the same concern about biologists fooling around with structured cells and genetics. Great plays are terrific mirrors, and they leave the audience with lots to talk about.
At the beginning of this season, Can Stage announced ambitious new targets in terms of getting Toronto audiences back to the theatre. What’s your message for the hesitant?
Gross: Come on back-it’s great. If you’ve forgotten what a wonderful experience it is to sit in a theatre and watch a play, try it again. You’ll remember. And this play is going to be fantastic. Martha is going to be so good.
Burns: So is Paul.
Your co-stars Mac Fyfe and Hailey Gillis are also a real-life couple. Have you started double-dating?
Gross: We’ve started swinging. Every night.
Burns: That’s a great rumour to start.
Put a tassel on the garage door.
Burns: What’s that?
I think it tells other people that you’re swingers. You hang a tassel on your garage-or maybe you leave the garage door ajar.
Burns: I’m going to have to start paying attention around the neighbourhood.
Gross: So that’s what’s going on in our garage.