Who is afraid of virginia woolf by albee

Martha is the daughter of the president of the university where her husband teaches. George is in his late forties and his wife is six years older, in her early fifties. Where he is somewhat cynical and world-weary, she is fiery and vulgar. She has invited a young couple back with them: Nick, a twenty-something biology lecturer at the university, and his wife Honey, a plain-looking woman also in her twenties. As she gets more drunk, Honey grows bolder and asks George and Martha when their son will be coming home.

Honey rushes off to the toilet to be sick, as she has drunk too much. Nick confides to George that he only married Honey because she had a phantom pregnancy and he felt he had to do the honourable thing. He and Martha pay tribute to their son, on his twenty-first birthday, before George tells his wife that their son has died in a car crash. When she demands to see the telegram announcing this news, he claims he has eaten it.

Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the same way, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play.

A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening's end, a stunning, almost u "Twelve times a week," answered Uta Hagen when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

By the evening's end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With the play's razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping away of social pretense, Newsweek rightly foresaw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title.

Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Robert Muir Snigdha Jayakrishnan is on the right track. In an interview about ten years ago Albe stated that he saw it scrawled on a wall somewhere in downtown Ne …more Snigdha Jayakrishnan is on the right track.

In an interview about ten years ago Albe stated that he saw it scrawled on a wall somewhere in downtown New York and thought it was catchier than the working title he was using. I am not sure I understood the ending in the way the author meant it.

Would anyone care to give me their own interpretation? I would be very grateful. Terence Everything about this play falls into place once you realize that all four characters are gay men. A reviewer in the New York Times noticed this in th …more Everything about this play falls into place once you realize that all four characters are gay men. A reviewer in the New York Times noticed this in the mids, and it proved very helpful to me.

Indeed, he went further and noted that other gay playwrights had done the same thing. For example, Blanche DuBois makes more sense once you consider the possibility that she is a gay man in drag. See all 4 questions about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Jul 11, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: literature , film , classics , fiction , academic , drama , plays , united-states , 20th-century.

It examines the breakdown of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive an unwitting younger couple, Nick and Honey, as guests, and draw them into their bitter and frustrated relationship. The play is in three acts, normally taking a little less than three hours to perform, with two ten minute Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The play is in three acts, normally taking a little less than three hours to perform, with two ten minute intermissions.

Martha and George repeatedly sing this version of the song throughout the play. View all 3 comments. Jun 28, Trevor I sometimes get notified of comments rated it it was amazing Shelves: literature. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. This is, quite simply, one of my all time favourite plays. And then there is that bizarre scene when they leave the house which makes no sense at all I first read this play in high school and had to do a reading of the play in front of the class.

Naturally, I was Nick, as the teacher This is, quite simply, one of my all time favourite plays. Naturally, I was Nick, as the teacher was George. There is a nice fact that Albee is supposed to have said he had no idea of the significance of calling his major characters George and Martha — and definitely did not mean any reference to the first President of the United States and his missus. I find this a little hard to believe — either way, fate has stepped in and this fact remains, intentional or otherwise.

I've always thought it adds something interesting to the play. This might as well be two plays. On the surface there is a couple who look like they are about to tear each other apart.

But this is only on a surface level. The depth of affection and love between George and Martha is really the point of the play — the games they play are quite literally played so as to keep each other sane.

Honey has there ever been a more perfect name? To look at her you might think she was completely incapable of sustaining a pregnancy and that this is the point — but actually, her life is spent having to drink brandy never mix, never worry to end a constant string of pregnancies. This, of course, stands in stunning contrast to Martha, who comes across as the earth mother - but in reality is incapable of having children.

George comes across as a pathetic creature at the start of the play, unable to satisfy his wife who considers him so ineffectual that she doesn't even pretend to hide her flirtations with other men — but by the end we realise that he has completely controlled all of the action in the entire play and everything that has happened has happened due to his choices and his decisions. There are possibly few modern plays with a more God like character. More than this, everything that happens, happens due to his great love of Martha — something that seems incomprehensible at the start of the play as they are tearing strips off each other.

I went to see this play a year or so ago and was almost reduced to tears towards the end. The older I get the more I find that the sorts of things that are most likely to make me want to cry are not the sorts of things that might have had that affect on me when I was young. Then I would have been just as likely to have become upset over unrequited love or such - something I find a little dull now. Today I find what is almost too painful to handle is love that is based on a deep acceptance of who we are — if someone can love us for our scars, for ourselves — warts and all - I am almost invariably reduced to tears.

At the end of Therapy when the main character kisses the mastectomy scar of what had been his childhood sweetheart I was virtually a blubbering mess. But of course, such love only exists in fiction - and that is, perhaps, its main role.

All the same, watching Gary McDonald recite the requiem mass at the end of the play as Martha realises that her son is truly dead and must remain so for them to continue to have any access to him at all was as close as I would like to be to tears in a grossly public place. This is a truly devastating play, a play that shines and shines, a work of sheer power and genius. View all 24 comments. Sep 18, Michael rated it it was amazing.

I have to invent a new word after this play: sadvicious. As in, sad and vicious, ineluctably intertwined, till death do them part.

There's also the wicked humor of the play, for which I don't have a new word, a heartbreaking hilarity that keeps pace with the emotional maelstrom. This is an absolutely brilliant work. View all 20 comments. Nov 09, Michael rated it it was amazing Shelves: recs , A three-act play about the illusions that sustain two couples, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf follows the aging George and Martha as they entertain and terrorize the recently married Nick and Honey one night after the end of a university faculty party.

The evening starts off on an unpleasant note in the former couple's home, and the situation only further deteriorates as the increasingly intoxicated small group stumbles toward dawn. Albee's acerbic wit is at its strongest here, and in contrast t A three-act play about the illusions that sustain two couples, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf follows the aging George and Martha as they entertain and terrorize the recently married Nick and Honey one night after the end of a university faculty party.

Albee's acerbic wit is at its strongest here, and in contrast to many of his plays, the plot rarely feels tedious or drawn out. View all 12 comments. I have a fine sense of the ridiculous but no sense of humor. The writing is good though. Sharp and vicious and twisted. View 2 comments. Sep 07, Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing Shelves: best-books-ever , plays. George: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Martha: I am, George. Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.

George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen. The fiftieth anniversary production of the play, which is one of the greatest plays ever written, a masterpiece of the theater. The story of an important night in the lives of two academic couples, George and Martha, older, and Nick and Honey, new to the small colleg George: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The story of an important night in the lives of two academic couples, George and Martha, older, and Nick and Honey, new to the small college. Their meeting takes place after a drunken faculty party, very late, and goes on all night til dawn. The showcase here is the older couple, who treat each other both viciously and amusingly. They use language to maim each other, but also to amuse each other.

But do they love each other? Can they heal? To shatter the illusions through which they have been living. If possible. Honey: Apologetically, holding up her brandy bottle I peel labels. George: We all peel labels, sweetie; and when you get through the skin, all three layers, through the muscle, slosh aside the organs An aside to Nick , them which is still sloshable-- Back to Honey and get down to bone.

Honey: Terribly interested No! George: When you get down to bone, you haven't got all the way, yet. There's something inside the bone. They all are, and we all are. And to not be afraid? How do we achieve that? For that, George and Martha in particular, though Nick and Honey, too, need a Walpurgisnacht, a kind of blood-letting and a violent tearing away of illusions to get to the core of their relationship.

Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving. George and Martha.

Sad, sad, sad. A kind of symbol for both couples of the illusions they need to face down is the mention of a non-existent? There was nothing quite like it in theater before it, and many were since influenced by it, by Albee. I recommend your seeing a production, of course, including the great Academy Award-winning film with Richard Burton, Liz Taylor who, having been married and divorced three times understood epic marital conflict , George Segal and Sandy Dennis, which I saw again in awe.

Aug 05, Marc rated it really liked it Shelves: english-literature. What a great reading experience this classic play is, even on paper: the intensity of the interaction between the four characters just is fabulous. What about that? Can you talk about that? Is there frustration in that?

EA: I have no problem with the collaborative aspect of theater. Goodness, what could be better? EA: I look for intelligence, creativity, respect for text. I look for all sorts of things. Half of it is intuitive and half of it is deliberative. In other words, one can construct a persona on something like Facebook or one of these chat rooms that has some relationship to the other self.

And brutal honesty still shocks. ML: Pam, what about that for you? We have two 15 minute intermissions, and the off stage time of the characters will also be those 15 minutes. EA: You know what? If that had not been the case, I would not have had the intermissions. EA: I want them to be willing to reconsider whether all the values that they brought into the theater are still valid when they leave. ML: Do you think that this examination process is something theater has a particular power to invoke?

EA: Well, yes. You go to a play and it is happening. It is real, it is happening to you in the present, and, therefore, whether anybody knows it or not, that engagement is infinitely more persuasive. ML: The characters of George and Martha are two of the most iconic characters in the contemporary canon. ML: Do you mind talking about some of the qualities an actor must have to play either of these roles? At the same time, the actor being able to retain full control of all of his technical and psychological stuff, so that he can control this transformation.

ML: I read something, Mr. Albee, where you said that when Iceman Cometh premiered on Broadway you saw it five times…. ML: But it seems to me that the idea of positive thinking is deeply invested in the American sensibility…. ML: And, this question of self delusion—is that something you feel you address yourself in your plays?