Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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Template:Broadway-show Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee that opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider. Subsequent cast members included Henderson Forsythe, Eileen Fulton, Mercedes McCambridge and Arthur Hill.

In the play, Martha and George, a bitter erudite couple, invite a new professor and his wife to their house after a party and then continue drinking and engage in relentless, scathing verbal and sometimes physical abuse in front of them. Martha is the daughter of the president of the university where George works as a history professor; Nick is the biology professor who Martha insists teaches math, and Honey is his mousy, brandy-abusing wife.

The title is a parody of the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Disney's version The Three Little Pigs; it is implied, but never made clear, that "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is an improvised lyric someone at the party Martha and George have returned home from at the opening of the play invented in a moment of drunken wit, and Martha and George repeatedly needle each other over whether either one of them found it funny. The reference to Virginia Woolf as nothing more than a meaningless pun may reflect something of the tone of the play, combining a reference to high culture with banal, immature schoolyard cruelty, although the impenetrability of the reference — in what context was it made? what was the rest of the song? — also reflects the impenetrability of the fictions George and Martha weave while playing their "games".

Nick and his wife are fascinated and embarrassed, and stay even though the abuse turns periodically towards them as well.

1 Plot summary
2 2004-2006 Production
3 Film
4 Trivia
5 External links

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Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Throughout the play, there are lots of darker veins running through the dialogue, with recurring themes suggesting the border between created fiction and reality is continually challenged.

The play involves the two couples playing "games", which are not exactly games in the conventional sense but are, in a sense, savage verbal acts against one or two of the others at the party. These games are referred to with sarcastically alliterative names, "Humiliate the Host", "Get the Guests", and so on.

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"Humiliate the Host"

Martha, in the first act, "Fun and Games", taunts George in stressing his failures, in an almost brutal fashion, even after George exhibits violence:

Martha: ...In fact, he was sort of a ... a FLOP! A great...big...FLOP!

[CRASH! Immediately after FLOP! George breaks a bottle against the portable bar...]

George [almost crying]: I said stop, Martha

Martha: I hope that was an empty bottle, George. You don't want to waste good liquor...not on your salary

In Walpurgisnacht, the next act, Nick and George are alone, talking. Nick talks about his wife Honey and her hysterical pregnancy - and:

George [To Nick]: While she was up, you married her.

Nick: And then she went down.

Later, George tells a story about a boy who shot his mother (by accident), a boy who was driving in the countryside with his father, who "swerved the car, to avoid a porcupine, and drove straight into a large tree...when they told him that his father was dead...he was put in an asylum". This theme is important, as it recurs later in the play.

Martha then begins to describe a novel that George wrote recently: "a novel about a naughty boychild...who killed his mother and his father dead." Martha continues: "Georgie said...but Sir, it isn't a novel at all...this really happened...TO ME!". George and Martha physically fight: George grabs Martha by the throat. But Nick is the only one who has a spark of realization to the matter. Albee only suggests

Nick [remembering something related]: Hey...wait a minute...

Is the "boy who shot his mother" in fact George and he was lying to Nick about the asylum, is the asylum something metaphoric, or is Martha lying about the book, or is something else afoot? The immediate truth is not in fact clearly evident. This brutal event consists of the game "Humiliate the Host."

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"Get the Guests"

George is quick off the mark in an indirect retort in the next game, "Get the Guests". While Nick and George were talking, Nick described the story about how they ended up in New Carthage and their marriage. Honey, thoroughly drunk, does not realize that George's story about the "Mousie's father" and Honey, who "tooted brandy immodestly and spent half of her time in the upchuck", with her hysterical pregnancy is in fact about her. She feels as she is about to be sick and runs to the bathroom.

At the end of this act, Martha starts to seduce Nick blatantly in front of George. George however, sits calmly, quietly, even reading a book:

Martha: ...I said I was necking with one of the guests...

George: Yes, good...good for you. Which one?

Martha: Oh, I see what you're up to, you lousy little...

George: I'm up to page a hundred and...

At the end of the act, Honey comes out, hearing Martha and Nick brush against the doorchimes, wondering who rang. This gives George an idea, and leads into the next, crucial act of the play.

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"Bringing Up Baby"

In the third act, Martha comes out with no one on stage, speaking in soliloquy. Nick joins her after a while, recalling Honey in the bathroom winking at him. The doorbell rings: It is George, with a bunch of snapdragons in his hand, calling out "Flores para los muertos" (flowers for the dead, in a reference to A Streetcar Named Desire). Martha and George argue about whether the moon is up or down: George insists it is up while Martha says she saw no moon from the bedroom. George then continues to say how he was in the Mediterranean when the moon went down and came up again: Nick asks whether it was after George killed his parents:

George [defiantly]: Maybe.

Martha: Yeah; maybe not, too.

...

George [to Nick]: Truth and illusion. Who knows the difference...?

George calls Nick to bring back his wife for the final game, "bringing up baby". George and Martha supposedly have a son, which George has instructed Martha to keep quiet about to which she failed. George starts to talk about this son, how "Martha...climbing all over the poor bastard, trying to break the bathroom door down to wash him in the tub when he's sixteen," then George prompting Martha for her "recitation", in which they describe their son's upbringing in an almost duet-like fashion:

Martha: It was an easy birth...

George: Oh, Martha; no. You laboured...how you laboured.

Martha: It was an easy birth...once it had been...accepted, relaxed into

As this progresses, George begins to recite sections of the Dies Irae (part of the Requiem, the Latin mass for the dead), and in the end:

George: Martha...our son is...dead.

[Silence.]

He was...killed...late in the afternoon...

[Silence.]

[A tiny chuckle] on a country road, with his learner's permit in his pocket, he swerved, to avoid a porcupine, and drove straight into a ...

Martha [rigid fury]: YOU...CAN'T...DO...THAT!

But - if their son was real, what has George supposed to have done? The circumstances of their son's death was touched on before, though in a different context. "Truth and illusion...Who knows the difference?"

George and Martha in fact have created their son; he does not exist as George and Martha could not have children. George says that he "killed" their son because Martha broke their rule that she could not speak of their son to others - but George also says that "it was...time". The play ends on a slightly less dark note, with George singing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" to Martha, whereupon she replies, "I am, George... I am".

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2004-2006 Production

Starting in 2004, and continuing into 2005, there was a new Broadway production of the play. The production was directed by Anthony Page and starred Kathleen Turner as Martha and Bill Irwin as George. Irwin won the 2005 Tony award for best actor for his role. The production has now transferred to London's West End with the entire original cast, and as of March 2006 is playing at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.

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Film

Template:Infobox Film A film adaptation of the play was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It was released in 1966. The film version differs slightly from the play. The play features only the four characters listed above while in the film there are two other minor characters, the host of a roadhouse who appears briefly and says a few lines, and his wife, who serves a tray of drinks and leaves silently. (They were played by the gaffer on the film, Frank Flanagan, and his wife.) In the play, each scene takes place in Martha and George's house, while in the film, a few scenes take place at the roadhouse and outside George and Martha's house, as well as in their car. Despite these minor variatons, however, the film is extremely faithful to the play. The filmmakers used the original play as the screenplay and, aside from toning down some of the profanity a slight bit -- Martha's "screw you!" becomes "damn you!" -- virtually all of the original dialogue remains intact.

Image:LizDick3.jpgEach of the four main actors was nominated for an Oscar but only Taylor and Sandy Dennis (playing the mousy wife) won for Best Actress and Supporting Actress, respectively. The film also won for Black and White Cinematography for Haskell Wexler's stark, black and white camera work (it was the last film to win before the category was eliminated). It has usually been listed on the top 250 films list at the Internet Movie Database.

The film is considered groundbreaking for having a level of profanity and sexual implication unheard of at that time. At the time, Jack Valenti, who had just taken over as president of the MPAA in 1966, had just thrown out the old Breen Office Code. In order for the film to be released with the MPAA approval, the releasing studio Warner Brothers agreed to minor deletions of certain profanities and to have a special warning placed on all advertisement indicating adult content in the film. It was this film and another groundbreaking film, Blowup, that led Jack Valenti to begin work on the MPAA film rating system that went into effect in 1968.

The choice of Taylor – at the time regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world – to play the frumpy, fifty-ish Martha surprised many, but the actress gained thirty pounds for the role, and her performance (along with those of Burton, Siegel and Dennis) was ultimately praised. According to Edward Albee, he had been told that Bette Davis and James Mason were going to play "Martha" and "George" — in the script, Martha references Davis and quotes her famous "What a dump!" line from Beyond the Forest — and was surprised by the Burton/Taylor casting, but stated that Taylor was quite good, and Burton was incredible.

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Trivia

Because of the dark, unflattering glimpse of heterosexual married life, many critics at the time suggested the play was a thinly veiled portrait of two gay male couples. Albee (who himself is openly gay) has adamantly denied this, stating to a number of interviewers over the years, "If I'd wanted to write a play about two gay couples, I would have done so."
Albee was not initially pleased with the choices of Taylor and Burton in the lead roles. His stated preference was for Bette Davis and James Mason. However, he subsequently praised Taylor and Burton, once the film was completed.
The only film (so far) in Academy history to be nominated in every eligible category (13 eligible categories/13 nominations: picture, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, director, adapted screenplay, art direction/set decoration (b&w), cinematography (b&w), sound, costume design (b&w), music score, film editing).
Nick is never addressed or introduced by name. (Viewers would not know the character's name, were it not cited in the credits.) He is, however the recipient of a number of derogatory and/or unflattering nicknames from George (e.g. "stud", "houseboy", "blondie").
Mad Magazine did a sendup of the movie, titled Who in Heck is Virginia Woolf?! At one point, it is remarked "This is an art film, so the censors have to let us talk dirty!" Most of the swearing is replaced with dingbats; when Martha asks George "%$?" and he replies "What kind of profanity is that?!", she says "I was just asking what percentage of the gross we're (Taylor and Burton) getting!" Their son turns out to be real... and a clean-cut, non-dysfunctional bore.
The movie version was spoofed on The Benny Hill Show, with Hill playing both Burton's and Taylor's parts.
A 1990s stage revival of the play starred John Lithgow. Though the actors were praised for their performances, the timeliness of the staging was questioned in reviews.