This week, I carried a copy of the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? program in my bag as a badge of honor.

I took in the play at the broiling Phoenix Theatre last Saturday evening as I recovered from the wild, brain cell-obliterating bachelorette party that Beth, Gretchen and Lisa threw for me the night before.

If the play had been bad, or event decent, I wouldn't have made it. But the four skillful players had their way with me, pulling me into minute after minute of near-suffocation. It also helped that one of the actresses is one of Beth's high school friends, so I was interested in seeing her work.

Martha Harmon Pardee as Martha seduced me, Sam Gregory as George surprised me, Ed Cord as Nick disgusted me and Barbra Andrews as Honey concerned me. The bottle of water I bought before the showalong withthe two intermissions saved me.

Naturally, I waited for my first time to see a Paragon Theatre production to be when they put on a show in a space that captures its namesake city's real-time temperature. Barbra, the FOF, told me this week her posse thinks it's somewhere between 82 and 85 in there.