Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

the man:

 

Edward Franklin Albee III was born March 12, 1928, in a now unknown location in Virginia and taken in by the wealthy Albee family when two weeks old, making him the adopted grandson of powerful vaudeville impresario Edward Franklin Albee II (whose company would later become the RKO motion picture company through a series of mergers and transitions). At the age of 22, Albee distanced himself from his adopted family, although he later attempted to reconcile with his mother.

A badly behaved and unwilling student from the start of his educational career, Albee attended Trinity College in CT for only a short while. His college experience mainly consisted of skipping class and refusing to attend compulsory chapel, and thus he was expelled (or “dropped out”) for his behavior.

That’s cool though, because after starting his writing career at the age of 30, Albee is now respected alongside great American playwrights like Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill. He is also credited with Americanizing the Theatre of the Absurd.

Along with his three Tony Awards and the 1996 National Medal of Arts (take that, Trinity), Albee has won three Pulitzer prizes; however, none of them were for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Although it received the winning vote from the Pulitzer Prize drama panel in 1963, the Pulitzer Committee vetoed their decision, ultimately deciding the play did not represent a "wholesome" view of American life. The drama panel rebelled (many even resigned), resulting in no prize being awarded that year.

Still alive and writing, Albee currently teaches at the University of Houston. His other notable plays include “A Delicate Balance,” “Seascape,” “Three Tall Women,” and, most recently, “At Home at the Zoo.” He is to be presented with the Edward MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement August 14.

 

the play:

 

“Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theater on October 13, 1962, directed by American theatre director Alan Schneider (who also directed the American premiere of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”). It ran for 644 performances and was controversial as well as outrageously popular.

The name is a play on the title of the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Walt Disney's "The Three Little Pigs" and is named after the famous English novelist. The title predated the play – Albee saw the line scribbled on a wall in a bathroom and thought it amusing, as well as an example of the sort of humor singular to universities, and was thus inspired to write the play. He claims the characters of George and Martha were based off of real-life NYC socialites (and tumultuous married couple) Willard Maas, a teacher and poet, and Marie Menken, a documentary filmmaker.

Due to the title, Albee is credited with substantially raising interest in Woolf’s work in 1960s America.

“Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962-63 New York Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play, while its stars won the 1963 Tony Awards for Best Actor and Actress. It would have won the Pulitzer, but, well. We already went over that drama.

It might be useful (or at least interesting) to know the setting in which the play originated. In 1961 and 1962, around the time that Albee was writing the play, these were some of the important events occurring in America:

In 1961, the Cold War continues, J.F.K. (VP: Richard Nixon) enters the White House after Eisenhower, Khrushchev is still leader of USSR, the Bay of Pigs Invasion (April 17-19) fails, Alan Bartlett Sheppard, Jr., becomes the first American in space, Judy Garland makes a comeback, the Freedom Rides take place coinciding with escalating violence in the South, and J.F.K. decrees his goal to place a man on the Moon by the end of the decade -- and in the first half of 1962, the U.S. embargo against Cuba begins, the Supreme Court rules that photos of nude males are not obscene (thus decriminalizing pornographic male magazines), and Marilyn Monroe is found dead from “acute barbiturate poisoning.”

 

questions:

 

1. First off, what was your general reaction to the play? Did you sympathize with the characters at all? Was the story interesting?

 

2. Since this story takes place in a university, it obviously hits a little closer to home than, say, “Ubu Roi” with its abstract royal setting. As members of a university, do you think Albee portrays university life accurately? In what ways did he fail to do so, and/or in what ways did he succeed?

 

3. Martha and George obviously aren’t psychologically healthy people. What do you think their problems are? What is their motivation for acting like they do?

 

4. What do you think Albee wants you to take away about people who choose to become university professors (or just university in general)?

 

5. What were your thoughts on Martha and George’s relationship at the beginning of the play compared to at the end?

 

6. One of the more obvious themes in “Woolf?” is illusion. What parts of the play represented that? Or if not illusion, what did you think the theme of the play was?

 

7. Do Martha and George actually like one another?

 

8. Designers, actors, directors: How would you design/act/cast for this play? Also, Albee doesn’t give many stage directions in the script. Is that freedom a good thing?

 

9. How do gender, sex and sexuality function in the play? Do you think it’s significant that Nick and Martha are the more confident and gregarious, while George and Honey are the more repressed (if that's how you understood the characters)? Or that we’re never told Martha or Honey’s subjects of study (if they have one)?

 

10. If you had to explicitly label the role of each character (feel free to be creative with your labels, e.g. The Instigator, The Downer, The One Who Keeps Things From Getting To Friendly…), what labels would you choose?

 

11. What is the significance of George as a History professor and Nick as a Biology professor?

 

12. What significance did the titles of the Acts hold? Or, in what way did they shape your understanding of the play?

13. What did Martha and George's final scene mean?

14. And finally... the son? How do you describe that?  A creative project gone bad? A necessary delusion created by two lonely drunks? Feel free to voice your thoughts. And what were your feelings on Martha and George's dilemma compared to Honey and Nick's decision not to have children?

That’s all. I’ll see you later today!