Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The play tears apart both marriages: the middle aged couple, who seem to hate each other and in the end turn out to be much more devoted to each other as it would seem. The young, seemingly perfect couple, who turn out to have lots of problems of their own. In three heart-breaking scenes, using dialogue that cuts like a knife, Edward Albee has written a masterpiece. He manages to give a clear-cut, honest picture of the reality of marriage, the reality of love, and the fears that go hand in hand with love and intimacy. At some point, in act three, Martha talks about her husband- and it's probably one of the best pieces of literature I've read:

"...George who is out somewhere there in the dark...George who is good to me, and whom I revile; who understands me, and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat; who can hold me, at night, so that it's warm, and whom I will bite so there's blood; who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; 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."

What more can I say? just read the play, and if you get the chance, watch it performed in the theatre, too.


The Most Beautiful Modern Drama   July 6, 1999
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

Looking past the rough language and the slew of verbal insults, one can see a sheer literary masterpiece. It wonderfully shows the struggle of George and Martha trying to come to terms with the reality they have created for themselves. When George discloses the secret of their son's nonexistence, he is forcing he and his wife to forfeit their mind games and live as functional human beings. By the way, in rebuttal, the title is absolutely perfect. Anyone with literary knowledge knows that Virginia Woolf was a realist who tried to present life as it truly is. Martha, at the end, is afraid of Woolf, or the symbol of life without pretenses.


Some of the best dramas on man/woman misunderstanding   January 12, 2002
Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

This is the stuff real drama is made:the human soul.And we see four torn, ravaged soul caught in a maelstrom of bitter emotions caused by frustration,unrequited love,anger and guilt feelings. Martha can't understand George's despair, that his apathy is generated by his ultimate failure to find a source of hope and meaning in his life; George can't understand the frustration of Martha, her own feeling of failure being incapable to connect whit him, to save him from his passive/aggressive depression; nor can Nick and Honey comprehend them, and indeed themselves. The sadistic rituals of games are like pagan sacrifices, made by the characters to the god of modern angst to know the truth on themselves. As the sad truth is revealed, they emerge maybe purified, surely wiser.This drama is like an interpretation of Eliot's Wasteland . The spirit,expecially in the final scenes,is very similar.


"You gotta have a swine to show you where the truffles are."   May 19, 1999
R. D. Allison (dallison@biochem.med.ufl.edu) (Gainesville, Florida, USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

This was Albee's first three-act play. It was also made into a film with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis. A cocktail party given by an unsuccessful history professor (George) and his wife (Martha) for a new instructor (Nick) with his wife (Honey) turns into a long session of arguments, verbal abuse, revelations, and catharsis. There are several references to George and Martha's 21-year-old son who we later discover to be nonexistent. The younger couple, who are having a child, turn out to have a sterile marriage as well, albeit for different reasons. This play won the 1962-1963 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. This play is filled with great dialogue: witticisms, verbal abuse, sorrow, and even compassion. It is easily one of the top dramas of the twentieth century.


Insights into Albee's play and the Theater of the Absurd   April 12, 2001
Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This review is of the Cliff Notes by Cynthia McGowan and James Roberts of Edward Albee's modern American classic play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Beginning with a brief look at the life and background of Albee, McGowan and Roberts provide an excellent 12 page section on "Edward Albee and the Theater of the Absurd," developing the similarities and differences between his plays and those of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet and Arthur Adamov. This section would be very useful to anyone teaching or studying these playwrights and the Absurdist tradition. After covering the setting, the significance of the title and the four characters, we have the main portion of this book, the Critical Analysis of the play itself. Unlike most Cliff Notes volumes, McGowan and Roberts do not separate their analysis into summary and commentary sections, choosing to combine the two elements instead. After covering the significance of the titles of the play's three acts, they conclude with an analysis of the four characters. Again, this is a departure from the standard practice of these Cliffs Notes volumes, which usually end with analysis of specific literary themes. So while the introductory essay is excellent and the analysis is more than adequate, you need to be aware that there is a sense in which this book is not as user-friendly as most Cliffs Notes volumes. However, I fully admit that I have a preference for having students learn how to work with the critical vocabulary, so I appreciate those Cliffs Notes where such terms are laid out as clearly as possible. Bottom line: there is a lot here that will help teachers and students with this great play on both the micro and macro levels.