Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The original play written by Edward Albee hit theaters in October 13, 1962, is now back in theaters. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? namely stemming from novelist Virginia Woolf, is coming to a theater near you, and you better not miss the opportunity to experience this Tony Award winning play.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starts off introducing us to George, a university history professor, and Martha, whose father is the university's president. Nick, a new professor, and his alcoholic wife, Honey, end up at George and Martha's house in the beginning of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Here, it when it gets socially awkward as the original couple show their first display of unhealthy bickering and fighting in front of their startled guests.
Going forward, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, once seen as controversy, has the two couples playing games that will have you getting a work out from the laughter their underlying and bitterly humorous attacks on each other entail. They go along with names for these games such as, "Humiliate the Host", "Get the Guests", "Bringing Up Baby", and a crowd favorite, "Hump the Hostess".
Next in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? we see the two men bashing and venting about the women, and pregnancies, in their life. It is quite comical. At this time as well, George enlightens Nick with a tale of a boy who accidentally killed both of him parents and ended up in an asylum. This sets the tone for the rest of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? quite well.
Martha then humiliates George by explaining to their guests that he wrote a novel that was hidden. The novel was of his own life, killing both his parents accidentally. Nick correlates the two stories, and starts to wonder about the asylum ending as a metaphor. George is livid with Martha at this time. As the humiliation turns darker in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George verbally attacks Honey's drinking problem, and Martha seduces Nick in front of a careless George, merely reading a book. Then the door rings.
In act three of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? referred to as "The Exorcism", George and Martha get into it about the moon and whether it is up or down, as well as a few other verbal differences they act out. Then, the two couples are gathered together in the living room where George wants to play one last game, "Bringing Up Baby". He starts to talk about about his son, whom he hadn't wanted either of them to speak of since now. He then starts to recite the chorus for the Latin mass for the dead, and this is when Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? turns especially eerie.
George explains that their son is dead, and he died the same way the book had told but in George's and the books story, the son killed the father, accidentally. Through a terrifying response by Martha, we come to realize that they never had a son, and George had publicly ousted Martha's secret dream that they were actually able to.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ends with the titles question being asked by George to Martha, in which she responds, "I am George, I am." It is a different taste of theater than the norm, and for that eerie and such thought provoking way, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a theatrical stage must see!
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