Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
When the Penguin told me to watch ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ by Edward Albee, he didn’t tell me to NOT watch it at night, and so I did. It was not meant to be of course, because it is too depressing a show to watch in the dead of the night. The theme of failed marriage(s) and pretences in the face of reality were hardly bed-time stories to go to sleep with.
In his work, Albee picks at every single sliver of pretence and tears it apart with pure vehemence. For anyone who has gone through a long, unhappy relationship that for some reason did not end expectedly, he or she would relate to the mad and bitter tirade between Martha and George. The ability to use the vilest of words and the most despicable tactics possible to get at the person that you know only too well. The sharpest incisions into the weakest spots. Yet, it is ironically this very ability that keeps the marriage together because it is the preciseness of the assaults that strangely forms a bond of intimacy and confidential knowledge, one that is unduplicable elsewhere with a different person.
Towards the end of the story, before the climatic exorcism, Martha divulges the way she has habitually attacked George’s weak spots in their tortured relationship. In a remarkable moment of self-revelation, she acknowledges her deep, authentic, triumphant love and bond with her soulmate, which I thought was exceedingly poignant.
You’re all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops. (To herself) I disgust me. You know, there’s only been one man in my whole life who’s ever made me happy. Do you know that?…George, my husband…George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me – whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. Yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad…Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: yes, this will do; who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad…Some day, hah! Some night, some stupid, liquor-ridden night, I will go too far and I’ll either break the man’s back or I’ll push him off for good which is what I deserve.
I also sort of liked how the ’supposedly’ innocent and perfect couple represented by Nick and Honey were cornered as the story progressed. Their image was symptomatic of the blissful appearances that many married couples fight to maintain in the public’s eyes, and it was in some ways cathartic to understand how such perfection are not always achievable ideals. As Martha and George up their antes by using their guests as pawns, we begin to see the young couple’s perfection buckle under, thereby revealing the equally disturbing foundations on which their marriage rest on. Not quite dissimilar to George and Martha’s and perhaps a parallel to what could have been the case in an earlier period in the former’s marriage.
The story ended after George announced to Martha that their ’son’ (a figment of imagination that had lasted throughout the entirety of the show) had died. Martha grew hysterical at George’s murder of her only solace in their broken and estranged relationship. The only commonality that had bounded them together throughout all these years of their failed marriage. However, one also appreciates how George is in fact purging their relationships of all the unncessary pretenses, lies and false comforts. Through this violent carthasis, or exorcism in Albee’s word, the couple are then able to regard each other in greater truth and honesty and not hide behind a comforting lie. This reconciliation was depicted at the end of the show as George held Martha lightly and sang the line ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to which she answered, “I am George.” Martha’s confession that she’s “afraid of Virginia Woolf” is a realistic admission and confession that she is afraid of reality, but ready to face it honestly and openly from now on, without continuing to harbor an illusion about a non-existent son
In this play, the mention of Virginia Woolf is equated with the prospect of having one’s life placed under the searing perspicacity of an observer like Virginia Woolf, which is coterminous with the idea of regarding one’s life in a manner that is so brutally honest that no lies can germinate. I also liked how what alcohol symbolised in the show. The characters’ eventual boldness and honesty were brought out as they imbibed more and more alcohol and yet as more truths were being unravelled, they sought to drink even more so as to drown out reality and illicit morsels of courage from having their senses and reason being dulled. It is all very real but painful to watch, yet the audience feel compelled to watch it because they are not drunk and hence are not impervious to the dramatic irony of the characters’ fate.
All in all, a pretty interesting text with themes which are only too familiar in our lives. It’s like watching one’s life emptied out in a black box. Very disquieting.
