Who's Afraid of the Virginia Woolf?- Study Guide by Syracuse Stage

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Syracuse Stage Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Study Guide Theatre and Education

Theater etiquette and FAQs

Who’s Who in the play

Meet the Playwright - biography, major works and criticial commentary

Setting the scene - timeline

Snapshot of 1962

Tackling the Text: Glossary

The Latin Mass

Critics speak about the show

Interview with Paul Whitworth (George) and Kate Skinner (Martha)

Questions for discussion

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A Troubled World Who’s Who in Virginia Woolf

hen we first meet George we can see that he doesn’t control his world. His wife has invited a couple over for drinks and not told him. Already, the audience knows George must compete with his father-in-law for influence with his wife. At first, it seems as if Martha “wears the pants in the family,” but as the insults start flying he shows he can verbally wrestle with anyone.

Albee named George and Martha for the nation’s first couple. He wanted to mirror George and Martha’s encountering of a world of shattered ideals to be reflective of what he saw as America’s shattered ideals in the early 1960s. Keeping with his theme, Albee named Nick after Nikita Krushchev, the Soviet premier who was President Kennedy’s rival. Although he appears wholesome and sympathetic, we soon discover Nick is coldly calculating and blindly ambitious. The revelation that he is impotent is a larger statement that Albee makes about the “new generation” that Nick represents. Honey appears to be a sheltered young woman with very little substance. Albee doesn’t even let us know her real name. Her childless relationship with Nick exists as a counterpoint to George and Martha. Honey’s need for motherhood is so great she suffers from a hysterical pregnancy, a psychological condition that mimics pregnancy.

The play examines the intense and troubled marriage of a university couple, George and Martha. The play begins as they return from a party hosted by Martha's father, the president of the university. Though it's now early the next morning, Martha has invited Nick and Honey over for drinks. "Daddy said to be nice to them." But the couple is anything but nice. George and Martha fight and then turn against the other couple. Their bitter words embarrass and fascinate Nick and Honey as George and Martha share some dark secrets. The play examines the human capacity for denial and fantasy. The characters challenge reality as Albee invokes ritual and game playing to tell his characters' story.

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I n t ro d u c t i o n

Albee wrote that Martha is “a large, boisterous woman.” He hints that Martha’s father abandoned her emotionally, she constantly wants approval. She is a flawed, complex person who feels trapped by her circumstances.

Plot Summary

Edward Albee

E M e e t t h e p l ay w r i g h t

dward Albee was adopted as an infant by Reed Albee, the son of Edward Franklin Albee, a powerful American Vaudeville producer. Brought up in an atmosphere of great affluence, he rebelled against the Larchmont, New York social scene. A young Albee irritated his mother by associating with artists and intellectuals.

At the age of 20, Albee moved to New York's Greenwich Village where he held a variety of odd jobs including office boy, record salesman, and messenger for Western Union before finally hitting it big with his 1959 play, The Zoo Story. Originally produced in Berlin where it shared the bill with Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, The Zoo Story told the story of a drifter who acts out his own murder with the unwitting aid of an upper-middle-class editor. Along with other early works such as The Sandbox (1959) and The American Dream (1960), The Zoo Story effectively gave birth to American absurdist drama. Albee was hailed as the leader of a new theatrical movement and labeled as the successor to Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill. He is, however, probably more closely related to such European playwrights as Beckett and Harold Pinter. Although they may seem at first glance to be realistic, the surreal nature of Albee's plays is

never far from the surface. In A Delicate Balance (1966), for example, Harry and Edna carry a mysterious psychic plague into their best friends' living room, and George and Martha's child in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) turns out to be nothing more than a figment of their combined imagination, a pawn invented for use in their twisted, psychological games. In Three Tall Women (1994), separate characters on stage in the first act turn out to be, in the second act, the same character at different stages of her life. Albee describes his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen." Although he suffered through a decade of plays without a commercial hit in the 1980's, Albee experienced a stunning success with Three Tall Women (1994) which won him his third Pulitzer Prize. He wrote Fragments in 1993, The Play About the Baby in 2001 and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? in 2002, which was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer and won the 2002 Tony Award for best play. He just revived Zoo Story for Hartford Stage in Connecticut and added a prequel, Homelife, to explore one of Zoo’s characters.

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A Glance at a Career Edward Albee’s plays Awards Tony Awards 1962 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 2002 The Goat Pulitzer Prize 1966 A Delicate Balance 1974 Seascape 1991 Three Tall Women 1980 Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters 1996 Kennedy Center Honors and National Medal of Arts

The Play’s Debut Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? premiered on Broadway in 1962. It was so unconventional that the producers were concerned about its potential to make money. They briefly considered having two simultaneous productions on Broadway and Off-Broadway, but this idea was scrapped. The play surprised its producers by becoming a box-office hit and making a hefty profit. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was turned into a film in 1966 starring then real-life husband and wife, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor and Sandy Dennis, who played Honey, both won Academy Awards for their performances. The movie was the film debut of Mike Nichols, who went on to be one of America’s greatest film directors with classics such as The Graduate, Primary Colors and Angels in America. Since the play’s 1962 debut, it has had numerous regional productions at theaters such as the Guthrie, featuring Patrick Stewart and Mercedes Ruehl. Albee himself directed a Broadway revival in 1976.

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M e e t t h e p l ay w r i g h t

The Zoo Story (1958) The Death of Bessie Smith (1959) The Sandbox (l959) Fam and Yam (1959) The American Dream (1960) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62) Tiny Alice (1964) A Delicate Balance (1966) Box and Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse Tung (1968) All Over (1971) Seascape (1974) Listening (1975) Counting the Ways (l976) The Lady From Dubuque (1977-78) Another Part of the Zoo (1981) The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981-82) Finding the Sun (1982-83) Marriage Play (1987) Three Tall Women (1994) Fragments (1993) The Lorca Plays (1995) The Play About the Baby (2001) The Goat - or - Who Is Sylvia? (2002) The Occupant (2002)

Talking About Edward Albee, his role in American theater

M e e t t h e p l ay w r i g h t

Condemned by some and worshiped by others, Edward Albee is clearly the most compelling American playwright to explode upon the Broadway stage since Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller in the mid-’40s. "Albee: Odd Man Out," Newsweek, February 4, 1963

Edward Albee… comes into the category of the Theatre of the Absurd precisely because his work attacks the very foundations of American optimism. Martin Esslin, "The Theatre of the Absurd: Edward Albee," The Theatre of the Absurd, 1961, 1968, 1969

If one were to sum up Albee’s contribution to the American stage, the immediate answer would surely have to be: his language. There is nothing in our theater to compare with the verbal pyrotechnics of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with the structured but transparent symbolism of Tiny Alice, with the compelling story-telling technique found in The Zoo Story and A Delicate Balance. From the very beginning… Albee has proved himself a master of dialogue. He has, in fact, revolutionized the language of the American stage, extending verbal metaphor into the visual settings of his plays, working isolated ironic meanings into a complex network of interrelated ironic reverberations, and using epic topography to maintain allegorical simplicity. He has elaborated conversation with a sensitive ear to its complex musical effects (fugues, partitas, lyrical arias, nervous recitatifs), moving easily from major to minor moods, matching harmonic shifts with subtle tone changes from largo maestoso to pianissimo, heightening meaning with sudden reversal in style, juxtaposing cliché with pompous rhetoric, slang with archaic formality, hysterical fluency with monosyllabic exhaustion, establishing a variety of rhythms which are a constant surprise within the simple framework of the action. Anne Paolucci, From Tension to Tonic: The Plays of Edward Albee, 1972

Albee’s work is characterized by an overwhelming sense of loss which, though doubtless rooted in the details of his own painful childhood, becomes an

image, firstly, of the loss by Americans of the principles which had been invoked by its founders, and, secondly, of the inevitable process of deprivation which is the basis of individual existence. The problem which he sets himself is that of formulating a response to this sense of loss which involves neither a self-pitying despair nor capitulation to those facile illusions endorsed by Madison Avenue, the Church, or simply the conventional wisdom of contemporary society. The solution which he advances is essentially a New Testament compassion, a liberal commitment to the Other. That is so say, he attacks a social system which fails in its primary duty of creating a communal responsibility and presents characters who must strip themselves of all pretense if they are to survive as autonomous individuals and accept their responsibility toward other people. W.E. Bigsby, Introduction to Edward Albee: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1975

While Albee might at times embrace absurdism in style, he generally does not… adhere to or advance an uncompromisingly absurdist philosophy. Ideologically, he remains a traditional liberal humanist, assuming much the same philosophical stance and political agenda as Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, and Lorraine Hansberry before him, exalting the natural virtues of an enlightened commitment to ideals of conduct guided by reason; a criticism of moral failure within a framework of compassion; and an overriding sense of responsibility to the community of mankind. Thomas P. Adler, American Drama, 1940-1960: A Critical History, 1994

Edward Albee burst into the American theatrical scene in the late 1950s with a variety of plays that detailed the agonies and disillusionment of that decade and the transition from the placid Eisenhower years to the turbulent 1960s. Albee's plays, with their intensity, their grappling with modern themes, and their experiments in form, startled critics and audiences alike while changing the landscape of American drama. Kennedy Center Commendation for Lifetime Achievement, 1996

Albee … is a moral optimist. For Albee’s worldview pre-

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Talking About continued [After Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?] Albee continued to experiment with a variety of forms, subjects, and styles in his succeeding plays; and while several of them failed commercially and elicited scathing reviews for their abstract classicism and dialogue, many scholars have commended his commitment to theatrical experimentation and refusal to pander to commercial pressures. Lawrence J. Trudeau, editor, Drama Criticism, Vol. 11, special volume devoted to Edward Albee, 2000

Albee’s is an affirmative vision of human experience. His vision underscores the importance of confronting one’s inner and outer world of O’Neillean "pipe-dreams," or illusions. In the midst of a dehumanizing society, Albee’s heroes, perhaps irrationally, affirm living. Matthew C. Roudané, American Drama Since 1960: A Critical History, 1996

The one thing I’m sure of is that the great theme of Edward’s life is pay attention—and it is in every play. Irene Worth, interview with Mel Gussow, quoted in Mel Gussow’s Edward Albee: A Singular Journey, 1999

Although initially characterized either as a realist or an absurdist, Albee combines elements from the American tradition of social criticism… with aspects of the Theater of the Absurd. … While Albee’s plays often portray alienated individuals who suffer as a result of unjust social, moral, and religious strictures, his works usually offer solutions to conflicts rather than conveying an absurdist sense of inescapable determinism. …

Photo courtesy Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Kate Skinner as Martha and Coleman Zeigen as Nick.

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M e e t t h e p l ay w r i g h t

supposes the talismanic powers of the theater to elicit public awareness and private insight. Within the Albee canon, one can locate an affirmative vision of human experience, a vision that belies Albee’s reputation as an anger artist. The world of the Albee play is undeniably saturated with death. But the internal action, the subtextual dimension of his plays, reveals the playwright’s compassion for his fellow human beings and a deeprooted concern for the social contract. What Albee calls a "full, dangerous participation" in human intercourse is a necessary correlative to living authentically. In his plays, essays, and interviews, Albee has long argued that it is only through the hurly-burly process of immersing oneself fully, dangerously, and honestly in daily experience that the individual may sculpt a "better self government." For Albee, the play becomes equipment for living.

S e t t i n g St yhra e cS uc seSntea g e

Moments in History The world

Albee’s life

1928 - Herbert Hoover is elected President of the United States. - Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando is published.

1928 - Edward Albee is born in Washington, D.C. His family’s wealth remains intact during the Great Depression

1936 - The Spanish Civil War begins.

1936 - He begins writing poetry

1940 - World War II intensifies.

1940 - When he is not promoted from the seventh grade, he is sent to a boarding school. He fails many classes, although he participates in the theater program, writes poetry and a play, Aliqueen.

1944 - Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit opens.

1944 - After two more dismissals, he attends Choate, a prestigious prep school where he thrives.

1945 - Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie opens.

1945 - Albee’s first professionally published work, a poem Eighteen, appears in a literary magazine.

1947 - India gains its independence. William’s A Streetcar Named Desire opens.

1947 - He is dismissed from Trinity College.

1953 - DNA is discovered. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible opens.

1953 - He meets Thornton Wilder, playwright of Our Town, and shows him some of his poems. Wilder asks Albee to consider writing plays. He writes a short play in verse, The Making of a Saint and dedicates it to Wilder.

1957 - Samuel Beckett’s Endgame opens.

1957 - Albee sees a production of Jean Genet’s Deathwatch.

1958 - The drug Thalidomide causes 7,000 babies to be born with severe birth defects.

1958 - He writes a play, The Dispossessed. - He writes The Zoo Story.

1959 - Castro takes over Cuba.

1959 - The Zoo Story is produced on a double bill in German with Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. - Albee writes The American Dream and The Sandbox.

1960 - Civil rights demonstrations in the U.S. south protest racial segregation. - Alfred Hitchock directs Psycho. - Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros opens.

1960 - The Zoo Story is produced in the United States at the Provincetown Playhouse - Albee begins work on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but titles it The Exorcism. 1961 - He completes Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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Time Capsule Snapshots of 1962 ho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened on Broadway on October 13, 1962. The play is set on the campus of New Carthage, a small New England College. Here's some of what was going on beyond the campus.

Telstar Communications satellite launched, making it possibly the first live transatlantic television broadcast.

For one week the world seems on the brink of nuclear war as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. square-off over Soviet intermediate-range missiles in Cuba.

Peter Fechter the first person killed in an attempt to flee East Berlin over the Wall. Johnny Carson replaces Jack Parr as host of the Tonight Show Nobel Prizes Literature: John Steinbeck Peace: Linus Pauling Physiology or Medicine: James D. Watson, Maurice H.F. Wilkins, and Francis H.C. Crick for determining the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Grammy Awards Record of the Year: "Moon River," Henry Mancini Album of the Year: “Judy at Carnegie Hall,” Judy Garland

Pope John XXIII opens the Second Vatican Council. The announced purpose was spiritual renewal and a reconsideration of the position of the church in the modern world. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy permits the liturgy to be conducted in vernacular language instead of Latin. John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth. James Meredith becomes first African-American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett tries to bar his admission. Angry whites riot, causing three deaths and numerous injuries. 15,000 U.S. military advisers in Vietnam. President John F. Kennedy defends the U.S. role in Southeast Asia saying that the troops are "not combat troops in the generally understood sense of the word." Mariner II reaches Venus. The first interplanetary probe sends back photos of the cloud-shrouded planet.

Academy Awards Best Picture: West Side Story Tony Awards Best Play: A Man for All Seasons Best Musical: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Emmy Awards Outstanding Achievement Humor: The Bob Newhart Show Major films: Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Manchurian Candidate Books: Another Country (James Baldwin), In the Clearing (Robert Frost), The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey), The Colossus and Other Poems (Sylvia Plath). Deaths: Marilyn Monroe, Niels Bohr, William Faulkner, Ernie Kovacs, Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Setting the Scene

France transfers sovereignty to the new republic of Algeria. The transfer sparks terrorism in both Algeria and France.

Pat Brown defeats Richard Nixon in California gubernatorial race

Glossary

ragc tuhs eS tTex a g et Ta ckSlyi n

What’s what in the play Abomination: A thing that causes disgust or hatred. (Act I) Abstruse: To understand (Act I) Aegean: The Aegean Sea is located between the Greek peninsula on the west and Turkey to the east, with Crete forming a geographical division. The Aegean Sea region was the home of two of the world's earliest civilizations - the Minoan Civilization of Crete and the intellectual and military empire of Greece. It was also of the scene for much of the earliest growth of Christianity. (Act III) Albatross: An obstacle to success (Act I) Allegory: A story that contains a hidden meaning. (Act II) Bandied: Frequently used in casual conversation. (Act I) Bête: French; beast (Act II) Blue games: Not for children, a “blue” act was an obscene skit from a nightclub. (Act I) Blue circles around her: Pagan women would often paint blue circles on them for use in rituals. (Act I) Bucolic a description of an idealized rural life; also a literary form, usually a short descriptive poem, which depicts rural or pastoral life, manners, and occupations (remember that Nick and Honey are from Kansas, farm country). (Act II) Bravura: Great enthusiasm (Act II) Canaille: French; scum, scoundrel (Act II) Carthage: North African city which fell prey to internal conflicts and eventually was sacked by the Romans during the Punic Wars (c. 150 B.C.); in Virgil’s The Aeneid, the ancient, tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas is played out in Carthage. "You think you’re going to be happy here in New Carthage, eh?" (Act I) Chippie: Slang; promiscuous woman. "Ohhhh! I’ll bet! Chippie-chippie-chippie, hunh?" (Act III) Cipher: An unimportant person or thing Cochon: French; pig (Act II) Contemptuous: The feeling that a person or thing is worthless or beneath consideration. (Act II) Convoluted: Folded or twisted in a complex way (Act II) Crazy Billy: In an interview, Albee said the name was a private joke; his lover at the time was named Bill, and Albee said they both worked at Western Union.

(Act III) Crete: Home to the Minoans, one of the earliest civilizations. (Act II) Cretins Someone with a congenital mental deficiency. (Act II) Daguerreotype: An early kind of photograph produced using silver-coated copper plate and mercury vapor. (Act II) Declension: The changes in the form of a noun, pronoun or adjective that identify its grammatical case, number or gender. (Act I) Derisively: Expressing contempt or ridicule. (Act II) Derision: Scornful ridicule or mockery. (Act III) Dies Irae: Latin, from the Mass for the Dead; day of wrath. "…through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae." (Act II) Fen: A low and marshy or frequently flooded area. (Act I) Flagellation: To whip someone, originally as a form of religious punishment. Flores: “Flores para los muertos. Flores. Spanish; Flowers; flowers for the dead. Flowers.” Quoted from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. (Act III) Frau: German for Mrs., sometimes meant as an insult to describe someone as dowdy and unappealing Gelding: A castrated animal, especially a male horse. (Act III) Gatling gun: A machine gun with a cluster of barrels that are fired in sequence as the cluster is rotated. (Act III) Gird: Encircle or secure with a belt or band. (Act III) Gomorrah: Biblical city which was destroyed by fire from God for its wickedness . Harridan: A bossy or aggressive old woman. (Act III) Ibid: In the same source. (Act I) Illyria: City on the coast of the Adriatic Sea; home of a contentious people, the city was destroyed by Rome during the Punic Wars; the setting for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. "And this… this is your heart’s content— Illyria… Penguin Island… Gomorrah…" (Act I) Incredulity: Being unwilling or unable to believe some-

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Glossary continued evokes the sound of ringing bells. "I was asleep, and the bells started… they BOOMED!… Poe-bells… they were Poe-bells." (Act II) The Poker Night: A scene from Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire. "Up the spout: THE POKER NIGHT. Up the spout" and the original name of the play. (Act III) Punic wars: A series of wars during which Rome attacked and conquered the powerful city-state of Carthage. The effort transformed Rome from a regional power into an empire. (First Punic War 264, 241 B.C., second 218-202, Third 149-146 B.C.) Pretext: A false reason used to justify an action. (Act III) Putan: French for vulgar, whore (Act II) Rueful: Expressing regret (Act I) Sacre du Printemps: French; Rite of Spring; ballet (1913) by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, with dramatic, almost violent rhythms the work evokes Russian pagan rituals. "Martha’s going to pin on some rhythm she understands… Sacre du Printemps, maybe." (Act II) Salaciously: Having too much interest in sexual matters. Simp: A simple or foolish person (Act II) Solicitous: Showing interest or concern about a person’s well being. (Act II) Snapdragons: In Western folklore, snapdragons are believed to ward off evil. (Act III) Sonny-Jim: A term for an “all-American guy” that was initially used genuinely during the 1930s-50s but eventually became more cynical; also a political reference to Republican James Rolph, Jr., who served as the mayor of San Francisco for 19 years and became governor of California in 1930. (Act III) Stentorian: Loud and powerful (Act I) Walpurgisnacht: German; the eve of May Day; witches’ Sabbath celebrated in medieval Europe; night of orgiastic celebration on which evil spirits are exorcised from cities and towns. (Act II).

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Ta ck l i n g t h e Tex t

thing. (Act I) Ineffectual: Ineffective (Act II) Insinuate: Gradually move oneself into a favorable position. (Act II) Lady Chatterley: Character in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) by D.H. Lawrence. She is an aristocrat who elopes with her groundskeeper. "A kind of junior Lady Chatterley arrangement…the marriage." (Act I) Majorca: Island of the Mediterranean coast of Spain; once occupied by Carthaginians and their conquerors, the Romans; there are also many remains on the island of a primitive masonry technique referred to today as “Cyclopean” (connects to George’s calling Martha a Cyclops); Majorca also experienced a decline at one point because of fighting among the different groups living on the island. (Act III) Manchuria: The northeast area of China; Japan and Russia long struggled for control of this rich, strategically important region; at the end of WWII, Chinese Communists were strongly established in Manchuria, and from 1949-1954, it was one of the staunchest Communist areas in China. (Act II) Monstre: French: monster (Act II) Ostensibly: Apparently true, but not necessarily so. (Act I) Parnassus: In Greek mythology, a mountain whose twin summits were devoted to Apollo and to the muses. Considered to be the seat of poetry and music. (Act I) Penguin Island: From a satirical treatment of French history by Anatol France (L’Ile de Pingouins, 1908); an island proselytized by a near-blind French monk who baptizes the island’s inhabitants without realizing that they are all penguins. (Act I) Pensively: Deeply thoughtful (Act II) Petulantly: Childishly sulky or bad-tempered. (Act II) Peritonitis: A serious inflammation of the abdomen’s lining (Act I) Pyrrhic victory: Won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile. (Act I) Pique: Resentment arising from hurt pride Poe-bells: Reference to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem "The Bells" (1849), which through rhythm and onomatopoeia

The Latin Mass Translation George recites this mass in Act III. In the Catholic faith, the Mass for the Dead is said on the occasion of a funeral or anniversary of a death.

Ta ck l i n g t h e Tex t

Absolve, Domine, animas omnum fidelium defunctorum ab omni vinculo delictorum. Absolve, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from every bond of sin. Et gratia tua illis succurrente, mereantur evadere judicium ultionis. And by the help of Thy grace, may they be enabled to escape the judgment of punishment. Et lucis aeternae beatitudine perfrui. And enjoy the happiness of eternal light. In Paradisum deducant te Angeli. May the angels lead you into paradise. In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit. The just shall be in everlasting remembrance: he shall not fear the evil hearing.

When Thou shalt come and judge the world in fire. Trembling and full of fear I approach the time of the trial of the wrath to come. When the heavens and earth shall be moved. Day of anger, day of terror, day of calamity and misery, day of mourning and woe. When Thou shalt come and judge the world in fire. Eternal rest grant them, Lord: and light perpetual shine down upon them. Deliver me, O Lord, from death everlasting, upon that dread day of terror: When the heavens and earth shall be moved: When Thou shalt come and judge the world in fire. Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Requiescat in pace. Rest in peace. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Eternal rest grant them, Lord. Et lux perpetua luceat eis. And light perpetual shine down upon them.

Dominus vobiscum. The Lord be with you. Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda: Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra: Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira. Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae; dies magna et amara valde. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Libera me Domine de morte aeterna in die illa tremenda: quando caeli movendi sunt et terra; Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Deliver me, O Lord, from death everlasting, upon that dread day of terror: When the heavens and earth shall be moved:

Photo courtesy Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Paul Whitworth as George.

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What the Critics have said... Our production opened in California in July - here are excerpts from local critics. SSC stages 'Virginia Woolf' with malicious deliciousness Directed by Michael Edwards, the SSC production is a triumphant interpretation of the raw emotional power of the play. The range of passion is extraordinary, and the nuances of physical interaction are splendidly subtle. It's an intensely dramatic piece of theater art, and SSC wrenches every bit of drama out of every scene. Although sometimes viewed as an historical allegory, "Virginia Woolf" doesn't need to look beyond the obvious for significance. Its view of marriage as a war zone is only the vehicle for its devastating emotional impact. George and Martha attack each other - and their guests - with deliberate and searing effects, but the undercurrents often prove more damaging than the hurled insults.

Three dramas anything but tame in Santa Cruz Staged indoors on Scott Bradley's creatively cluttered, evocatively detailed, professorial-manse set -- and in David Zinn's early '60s academia costumes -- it's a feast of exceptionally well-wrought performances in a grueling, wickedly witty and subversively affecting verbal slugfest. ... "Woolf" has often been seen as a metaphor for America (George and Martha were the founding First Couple, after all) as well as a bruising, and, here, deeply affecting, portrait of perverse emotional dependency. Edwards subtly plays to the larger meaning, staging the domestic battle in a living room designed as a combat-frayed American flag. With marital politics a hot-button issue, "Woolf" takes on an added immediacy -- as do Santa Cruz's "Shrew" and "Tamer." Each production stands well on its own, but the marriage of the three is a match made in festival heaven. Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle 8/11/04

Piercing Looks at Marriage The playwright lays bare every institution he can get his hands on, from academia and science to parenthood, in a play that’s as emotionally harrowing as ever. Edwards has assembed a pitch-perfect cast that captures every exchange of wit, lies and bile in all its perverse glory. Whitworth, with his lightly venomous touch, seems born to play George, a troubled soul ill-equipped to compete in a system that preys on the sensitive and the weak, and Skinner delivers a titanic performance as the ravenous Martha. Stifled by a society that left no outlet for her ambition, she pinned all her hopes on her husband and then loathed him for it. Karen D’Souza, San Jose Mercury News, August 2, 2004

...Nearly Flawless Virginia Woolf a must see The set design by Scott Bradley at first seems a bit enigmatic. But as you become aware that it represents, in its totality, a tattered flag of red, white and blue, you are able to catch the subtle political nature of the larger context. It is a grand design and works very well on this stage. ..As Nick, Coleman Zeigen...has the ability to hold his own and build the character of Nick so that it isn’t just another pretty young stud. Van Tassel [Honey] carries the role as a precious and delicate flower that she gradually opens to all of us. Wildly comic at times and deeply tragic at others, she never falters in her portrayal. Brian Spencer, Register-Pajaronian, August 13, 2004

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Ta ck l i n g t h e Tex t

Best of all, "Virginia Woolf" is extraordinarily funny. In between the wounding verbal blows are exchanges that delight us for their sly aptness and understated humor. The author's use of language is wonderfully effective, and the cast gets to deliver some remarkably hilarious lines while they're tearing each other into little snibbles, which makes the whole thing deceptively funny even when you know it isn't. Copyright (c) Santa Cruz Sentinel. All rights reserved.

Speaking With

Behind the Scenes

Paul Whitworth - George Interviewed by Joseph Whelan, Director of Publications

PW: Or inviting her.

JW: I know you've just started rehearsals, so at this point, who is George for you?

JW: Yes.

PW: I can answer it in one way but not in another because I don't think of character as separate from oneself. In this instance, one of the things we're thinking about is whether I should do an American accent. I asked Michael (Director Michael Donald Edwards) and he said he didn't think it was necessary. So I said, "Well, who is George?" and he said, "Well, you're a professor at an American university," which is quite true. There are a lot of people who grew up in England or whose parents grew up in England and they sound English-mostly on the East coast. In my case, we're making him someone whose parents were English, but who grew up in America. The other thing is we're making him a professor of American history, although his first degree is in classics. So, he's very well educated in what is nowadays, alas, rather old fashioned way of being very well educated. ... I've got a lot of things to draw on in terms of what it's like to be a professor. JW: The vicissitudes of academia? PW: Yes, and the particular kind of claustrophobia of it. JW: You think he's trapped? PW: Well, I think there are various traps. One is being married to the daughter of the president of the college. Another is that New Carthage seems like one of those small colleges that reflect the nature of the president who has raised all the money for it. Now, he's getting on and looking for a successor. Obviously, George was brought in to take over, but he isn't the right match at all. JW: I wanted to ask you about their son. There seems to be an understanding between them that he is never mentioned. It's a private matter. But George is the first to mention it. He warns Martha not to "start in on the bit." It's almost as if he's instigating, or antagonizing . . .

PW: We just talked about this the other day because there are two ways of reading that: one of that it is frequently brought up, but clearly as the play proceeds you get the idea that it isn't. But as we've been working this first week, the thing that has become more and more important is the nature of the dinner party from which they've just returned. It is obviously the beginning of the academic year, which is always a difficult time in the academic world. It is always a funny time because you have this invasion of new youth and new faculty who are particularly idealistic about the whole enterprise. For people who have reached George's stage of life, I think there is weariness to that because it makes you see what has happened to your own ideals and ambitions. So we have this party at the beginning of the academic year given by Martha's father to welcome certain new faculty. I think at this party something has crystallized for George and Martha. She talks about it more than he does. She says, "Well you don't mingle, you don't do anything." He says, "Well you go around braying at everybody." Clearly, this joke that she has made, singing "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf," certainly the way I'm thinking about it, is that Martha has made this rather anti-intellectual joke, a joke about her own ignorance of Virginia Woolf, and that this becomes a seed, a catalyst that crystallizes their enormous discontent with one another. JW: So, then do you think he is instigating her knowing that she's going to take the bait? PW: They come in, she's obviously elated in some way, probably from having met Nick. I mean why has she caused this after-party party to go on? They come in and they have this game, the "What a dump," which is obviously an old routine they have, working out what film something is from. But then she drops the bomb that people are coming 'round, and I think that by this point that there is such a gulf, such a San Andreas fault, between them that has been summoned up by the continued

Syracuse Stage 2004-2005 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Speaking With George continued dynamics of the party that the business of bringing up the "bit" is almost a shot across the bow before the guests arrive in revenge for her having invited the guests. I'm not sure yet. It is certainly interesting, though, that he is the one who invites the ghost into the room, as it were.

PW: I love it. I love it. George loves it. He clearly loves language and he's very good at it. So it's a combination of things. He's good at language in both its dimensions: one as a conveyor of ideas and shades of meaning, and the other as a rhetorical weapon. He's aware of language in both its meaning and its effect. I think the repetition is very revealing of his sense of irony, and it's also a way of asserting a kind of power because of his intelligence and his humor. One of the interesting things about the play is the way George and Martha need the audience of a third party, whomever it is, for the battle to commence. So part of the way he uses language is for an effect like that because it is a performance to an extent. JW: Kate Skinner (Martha) calls this a love story . . .

JW: So, I guess the question some might have is how can this be a love story given the way they treat each other? PW: It all depends on what you mean by the word love. I mean if its anything, love is the coming together of two people at the most profound level and that profound level, as people have known since the drama of ancient Greece, includes a lot of very dark material. And in a way, the more profound the love, the more profoundly it comprehends hatred and all the passions. Who said: "Each man kills the thing he loves?" I think from Medea on, love contains huge possibilities for destructiveness. JW: This play was originally done in 1962. Do you think it can resonate as strongly with audiences today as it did then? PW: I absolutely think so. It exposes so many things, as we were just talking about, this is not a play confined by its time psychologically. It's one of the great plays with insight Photo courtesy Shakespeare Santa Cruz into the tenPaul Whitworth as George. sions between two human beings at all levels. I think this play will always be one of the great explorations of passion.

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Behind the Scenes

JW: George's language is quite wonderful. He has wonderful twists and repetitions. How are you able to use that?

PW: I totally agree.

Speaking With Kate Skinner - Martha Interviewed by Joseph Whelan, Director of Publications JW: Have you done an Albee play before?

Behind the Scenes

KS: No, I haven't, although this is one of the plays, along with A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman, that I have long considered one of the great American plays. It's always been a play that I have been interested in, but I've only now reached the age where it's appropriate for me to play Martha. JW: What attracts you about the play? KS: It's deeply compelling. Of all the plays I've worked on-and I've worked on about 20 Shakespearean plays and Moliere and many classical plays-but I find that there is something so deeply human and disturbing about Virginia Woolf. At the same time, though, there's this great sense of humor. I think that's part of what makes it so great. It's about these big ideas and feelings, but Albee never loses the sense of humor. That's a very important quality for a play and a playwright. Certainly, Tennessee Williams had it. I mean people don't always realize that there is an enormous amount of humor in a play like Streetcar. That's what helps keep an audience going, they get some relief from the more tragic elements. JW: Many people find this play disturbing. Are the elements that strike you that way? KS: Well, without sounding too overtly feminist, I think much of what people find disturbing has to do with Martha. She's so outspoken. I told the director (Michael Donald Edwards) that she's Shakespearean. She's all spoken thought. She's completely uncensored, and I think for some people, especially in 1962, and even today, to see a woman who is so strong, so articulate and so intelligent, and also who uses her sexuality, it's very threatening. I'm sure it was in 1962 because it's still pretty much that way today. JW: In some ways the play very much reflects the time in which it was written. But many things certainly have changed. Here at Syracuse University for example, our

incoming chancellor is a woman, our vice-chancellor is a woman, the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts is a woman. That wasn't the case in 1962. KS: In some ways the play is a period piece in the sense that Martha had to marry someone who was coming into the college to carry on the succession from her father. Nowadays, Martha would be the heir apparent, not the person she married. She has that long speech about marrying George so he could eventually take over. If the play were written today, she would be the person to take over, and she wouldn't necessarily have had to marry. JW: Do you think that would change her as a character? KS: Definitely. Martha's options are very limited. You see that in Streetcar, as well. These women are so full, but the options available to them in life are so restricted. Not that someone today couldn't end up in Martha's situation-I'm sure it happens-but there are so many more possibilities for women now than there were then. It must have been very daunting for women, even though some women rose above it. But for most the options were limited. I know this from my own mother who ended up going back to school and getting her doctorate after her children were raised. When she was eighteen, she could either get married or work for the phone company. I’ve talked with Michael about this, that Virginia Woolf is a love story. I mean it's a love story that's gone wrong, but to me the end of the play is really about people who now have a chance to actually find their way back to each other and to having a life together. Whether it happens or not, we'll never know. JW: Do you expect there will be quite a few surprises? KS: This play is really sort of a boxing match. The most important dynamic is between George and Martha, and you want to feel, as you're watching, that it's even. You don't want to watch one just pummeling the other. So, continued

Syracuse Stage 2004-2005 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Speaking With Martha continued I'm very excited to discover how that will play out between Paul and me. You know because, like Nick, many people feel George is the weak one, but he's actually not. In the end, he may be the strong one.

nothing that can take the place of it. Nothing can make up for that. Nothing in this world. It's sad.

JW: When this play first opened it took some criticism as being decadent. How do you respond to that?

Behind the Scenes

KS: Well I don't think that George and Martha are poster people for a lifestyle. I don't think anybody goes to the play and says, "Hey, that's a great way to live. Let's have the George and Martha lifestyle." And I don't think that Albee's advocating that. I mean you could focus on the drinking and Martha's infidelities, but ultimately I think Albee is able to show us the vulnerability and pain that causes them to engage in this behavior. I think that's what people can identify with most. The sex and the drinking are really very illconceived band-aids for their deep disappointments. JW: What are Martha's disappointments? KS: They're huge. She has these lifetime woes. Even for myself, at my age-when you realize the things that happened to you in your childhood that are very hard to work through and get over-and with Martha, her mother died young and she had this obviously distant relationship with her father, whom she adored but she never truly captured his interest or his love. That's very hard to get over. And then her father's obvious disappointment in George had to be devastating to her because it was her failure, as well, for failing to choose well and failing to be the perfect daughter that she can't be. Then, I think, if you want to have a child and you're not able to, that's a life wound, a grave disappointment, because there is

Photo courtesy Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Kate Skinner as Martha.

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Questions for Discussion Can you sense the influence of other artists and events on Edward Albee’s writing? What influence has his work had on the development of this century’s theater and on the shaping of American identity? Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was written and set in the United States in the early 1960s. What political and social circumstances define this time period? How does the play reflect and comment upon this social and historical context? Give examples from the script. What makes this play relevant?

I n t h e C l a s s ro o m

Albee called early drafts of his play The Exorcism. What does this alternate title suggest about the events of the story? How do the humor and the serious edge of the play mix and to what effect? Consider the "sense of humor" displayed by George and Martha. What do they seem to find funny? What is meant when their characters talk about "taking a joke?" What do you find funny in the dialogue, personalities and situations of the play? Find examples from the script which illustrate Albee’s facility with language in this play. Notice the rhythms of speech, the patterns of exchange, the levels of meaning, the wit, the allusions, the musical structure. Discuss the tortured relationships portrayed in this play. Do these individuals love one another? What do you think holds these characters together? What do these relationships suggest about relationships in society?

“The dramatist is always commenting on people, and the problem is to comment effectively and make art out of it. You’re making a critical comment when you create the life of somebody. You can only make propaganda out of it if you think somebody is entirely bad, entirely good. You must expose both attributes. A character totally unworthy of sympathy or love would be totally unworthy of attention - the author’s attention or the audiences.”

Discuss the idea that it is difficult to determine which of the characters’ stories about themselves and each other is true? How important is it that the truth about the characters’ pasts is clear?

Edward Albee address at the Overseas Press Club 1965

Discuss the games that George and Martha play: Humiliate the Host, Hump the Hostess, Get the Guests and Bringing up Baby. How do these games organize the action of the play? How does each game propel the action? Discuss the catalysts for the conflict between George and Martha: the alcohol, the presence of Nick and Honey, the lateness of the evening, the events of the faculty party. Can you identify other catalysts? How and why does the presence of these factors contribute to the conflict? Why for instance, do George and Martha seem to need witnesses? In what way do the characters of Nick and Honey parallel the presence of the audience in the theater?

Syracuse Stage 2004-2005 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

More Questions and activities Cite instances when George and Martha say the exact opposite of what they mean. When do they lie to express the truth? Do they ever tell the truth in order to deceive? What is the impact of this? What happens the next day between George and Martha? Do they start the games again? Have they evolved in their relationship? Read the review excerpts on page 17. After seeing the show, have the students write a critical examination of the production, touching upon the performances and the set design. Was the production faithful to the playwright’s vision?

Virginia Woolf 1) Why did Edward Albee name his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Find out about Virginia Woolf. Using examples of critics, sections of her biography, and quotes from her writings, write an essay about the links between Virginia Woolf and the play. 2) Create a board game based on biography. Have students create a “Jeopardy” gameboard based on Virginia Woolf. a. Print a copy of the sample Jeopardy gameboard. b. Prepare a gameboard on a large piece of poster board as directed. c. Assign a category to each group. d. Each group will write answers for the assigned category. For your reference: www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/woolf-00.htm orlando.jp.org/VWWARC/vwbib.html http://www.cygneis.com/woolf/ www.aianet.or.jp/~orlando/VWW/vwlife.html 146.229.24.190/Woolf/woolfchr.html www.lm.com/~kaydee/Bloomsbury.html www.clark.net/pub/cosmic/woolf7.html

Primary Sources Using the play script as a primary source, write an essay on what life may have been like in the early 1960s. What were the roles of men and women? What issues were people concerned about? Use quotes from the play and items from the time line as examples to back up your argument.

Costume Design Bring in pictures from magazines, books etc..., or your own sketches, of how you would dress the characters from the play. Use quotes from the play to back up your choices. Why would you pick each style, color, the way the clothes fit, etc? How do your choices let the audience know the character’s facets?

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2004-2005 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

I n t h e C l a s s ro o m

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