fbpx
Wikipedia

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive an unwitting younger couple, Nick and Honey, as guests, and draw them into their bitter and frustrated relationship.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1962 Broadway poster
Written byEdward Albee
Characters
  • Martha
  • George
  • Nick
  • Honey
Date premieredOctober 13, 1962
Place premieredBroadway - Billy Rose Theatre
Original languageEnglish
SubjectMarital strife
GenreDrama
SettingMartha and George's New England home

The play is in three acts, normally taking a little less than three hours to perform, with two 10 minute intermissions. The title is a pun on the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Walt Disney's Three Little Pigs (1933), substituting the name of the celebrated English author Virginia Woolf. Martha and George repeatedly sing this version of the song throughout the play.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962–1963 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. It is frequently revived on the modern stage. The film adaptation was released in 1966, written by Ernest Lehman, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis.

Plot summary edit

Act One: "Fun and Games" edit

George is an associate professor of history, and Martha, his wife, is the daughter of the president of the college where George teaches. After they return home from a faculty party, Martha reveals she has invited a young married couple she met at the party over for a drink. Just before the couple—Nick and Honey—arrive, George gives a vague warning about "the bit with the kid" that Martha appears to understand.

As the four drink, Martha and George engage in scathing verbal abuse of each other in front of Nick and Honey. These interactions embarrass the younger couple, but they stay. At a point, Honey lets on that Martha told her about their son, which appears to unnerve George. After this, Martha's taunts and George's passive aggression only increase. When Martha launches into an embarrassing story about how she humiliated him with a sucker punch at a backyard party, George disappears. The story continues, with Nick and Honey laughing, until George appears with a rifle and fires at Martha. To their surprise, a Chinese parasol pops out of the gun barrel. Everyone finds this extremely funny, but Martha's taunts quickly resume, culminating in Martha relating how her father thought George would eventually rise to lead the college but George's lack of ambition has made him pathetic to Martha, who calls him a "great big fat flop."[1] George reacts violently by breaking a bottle. Honey, who has grown more and more deliriously drunk, quickly runs to the bathroom to vomit, leaving George alone with glass all over the room.

Act Two: "Walpurgisnacht" edit

(Traditionally, "Walpurgisnacht" is the name of an annual witches' meeting, satiric in the context of the play.)

Nick returns to find George alone. As they talk about their wives, Nick reveals that Honey once had a "hysterical pregnancy". George tells Nick about a time he went to a gin mill with some boarding school classmates, one of whom had accidentally killed his mother by shooting her. This friend was mocked for ordering "bergin" (bourbon). The following summer, the young friend was driving with his father and suddenly swerved to avoid a porcupine, accidentally killing his father. The boy was then sent to an asylum and became mute. As the story concludes, George and Nick discuss children, but the conversation turns insulting before Martha and Honey return.

Honey calls for music, so they put a record on. Because George refuses to dance, Martha dances with Nick, taunting George by making the dance very sensual while also telling another embarrassing story about George: his efforts to publish a novel about a boy who accidentally killed both of his parents (with the insinuation that the deaths were actually murder), but Martha's father would not let it be published. George attacks Martha, but Nick separates them. Clearly not satisfied, George launches into a new "game" called "Get the Guests," in which George begins telling a story about a "mousie" that is a thinly-veiled retelling of everything Nick has told George about Honey, including her alcoholism and her "hysterical pregnancy," implying that Honey "trapped" Nick into marrying her by pretending to be pregnant. Honey, devastated, runs to the bathroom again to throw up.

Martha begins to openly seduce Nick in the living room right in front of George, who blithely smiles and pretends to read a book. This greatly annoys Martha, who tells George that if he does nothing to stop her, she'll have sex with Nick. George is unmoved, so Martha goes upstairs with Nick. Immediately, an enraged George throws his book against the house's doorbell chimes, which ring out as he promises to make Martha "regret this."

(In all productions until 2005, Honey then returns, wondering who rang the doorbell. George then interrogates Honey about her pregnancy, then openly tells Honey that he is going to inform Martha that their son has died. In what is labeled the "Definitive Edition" of the script, however, this scene is cut.)[2]

Act Three: "The Exorcism" edit

(Exorcism is the expulsion or attempted expulsion of a supposed evil spirit from a person or place.)

Martha enters into an empty living room and shouts for the others to come out of hiding. Nick joins her. The doorbell rings, and George enters carrying snapdragons and making literary jokes that Martha seems to actually enjoy. Martha and George then argue about whether the moon is up, an odd game whose metaphors reveal that Nick was too drunk to have sex with Martha upstairs.

George asks Nick to bring Honey back for the final game, "Bringing Up Baby." Nick and Honey sit helplessly as George, at last, talks openly about his and Martha's son. As he accuses Martha of being overbearing to their son, she protests, leading George to ask for her "recitation." Martha agrees, and begins recalling their son's beauty and talents and accuses George of ruining his life. As she speaks, George recites sections of the Libera me (part of the Requiem Mass, the Latin mass for the dead) and Kyrie eleison (ancient Greek: "Lord, have mercy").

This continues until George informs Martha that the doorbell earlier was a messenger from Western Union arriving with a telegram that George says informed him that their son was dead, having been killed in a car crash when he swerved to avoid a porcupine—the exact wording that George earlier used in a story about a completely different person. Martha demands proof, but George insists on the reality of the situation. Martha, distraught, collapses. It slowly dawns on Nick that the son George and Martha have been talking about is not real. The fictional son is a "game" the two have been playing since discovering early in their marriage that they are infertile. George has decided to "kill" him because Martha broke the game's single rule: not to mention the boy to anyone else.

Overcome with pity, Nick and Honey leave. Martha suggests they could invent a new imaginary child, but George insists they cannot. The play ends with George singing "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?", a joke song someone sang that night at the faculty party. Martha weakly replies, "I am, George. I am."

Themes edit

Reality and illusion edit

Albee has said that the title of the play "means who’s afraid of the big bad wolf ... who’s afraid of living life without false illusions."[3][4](pp 71-72) Albee's interest in the theme of reality versus illusion is expressed in a number of his plays. In discussing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? he cites Nietzsche's interpretation of the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy of ancient Greek drama, as described in The Birth of Tragedy. Albee says,

There was a time when people believed in deities. And then revolutions came – industrial, French, Freudian, Marxist. God and absolutes vanished. Individuals find this very difficult and uncomfortable. All they have left is fantasy or the examination of the self.[5]

According to Lawrence Kingsley, Albee's characters create illusions to help them evade feelings of their own inadequacy – as "George and Martha have evaded the ugliness of their marriage by taking refuge in illusion." The play demonstrates "how his characters must rid themselves of falsehood and return to the world in which they must live."[4](pp 71–74)

The distinction between truth and illusion is at times deliberately unclear. The existence of the child, the "murder" by George of his parents, or Honey's "pregnancy" may be illusions, but they still seem real to the characters. Illusions may be exorcised in the play, but no truth or apparent reality is supplied in its place. "All truth", George says, "[becomes] relative".[6]

Critique of societal expectations edit

Christopher Bigsby asserts that this play opposes the idea of a perfect American family and societal expectations as it "attacks the false optimism and myopic confidence of modern society".[7] Albee takes a heavy-handed approach to displaying this contrast, making examples of every character and their expectations of the people around them. Societal norms of the 1950s consisted of a nuclear family, two parents and two (or more) children. This conception was picturesque in the idea that the father was the breadwinner, the mother a housewife, and the children well-behaved.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? smashes these conventions and shows realistic families that are far from perfect and possibly ruined. The families of Honey and Martha were dominated by their fathers, with no sign of a mother figure in their lives. George and Martha's chance at a perfect family was ruined by infertility and George's failure to become a prominent figure at the university.

Inspirations edit

Title edit

The play's title alludes to the English novelist Virginia Woolf. She committed suicide at age 59 in 1941. She left behind a note in which she expressed love for her husband Leonard Woolf and sorrow for the anguish she was causing him.[8] Twenty years later, playwright Edward Albee corresponded with him, asking permission to use his late wife’s name in the title of a new play, according to literary critic Leon Edel, an acquaintance of Leonard Woolf.[9] Woolf granted permission, according to Edel.[10]

Edward Albee’s title also pokes fun at the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Walt Disney's animated version of The Three Little Pigs. Because the rights to the Disney song are expensive, most stage versions, and the film, have Martha sing to the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", a melody that fits the meter fairly well and is in the public domain. In the first few moments of the play, it is revealed that someone sang the song earlier in the evening at a party, although who first sang it (Martha or some other anonymous party guest) remains unclear. Martha repeatedly needles George over whether he found it funny.

Albee described the inspiration for the title:

I was in there [at a saloon in New York] having a beer one night, and I saw "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" scrawled in soap, I suppose, on this mirror. When I started to write the play it cropped up in my mind again. And of course, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf means who's afraid of the big bad wolf – who's afraid of living life without false illusions. And it did strike me as being a rather typical, university intellectual joke.[11]

The title phrase happened to appear five years before the play's premiere, in a 1957 issue of The New Yorker:

A coffee fiend we know dropped into an espresso joint in Greenwich Village the other day and found himself whiling away his time reading the graffiti on the wall beside his chair. Most of the stuff was pretty humdrum, but he was arrested by a legend, done in elegant calligraphy, that read, "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?"[12]

The New Yorker responded in 2013 by suggesting that perhaps the graffiti that Albee saw was the same graffiti that The New Yorker reported in 1957.[13]

Characters edit

In an interview, Albee said Martha and George were based on two of his friends, the married New York socialites Willard Maas and Marie Menken.[14] Maas was a professor of literature at Wagner College and Menken was an experimental filmmaker and painter. Maas and Menken were known for their infamous salons, where drinking would "commence at 4 PM on Friday and end in the wee hours of night on Monday" (according to Gerard Malanga, an Andy Warhol associate and friend to Maas). The primary conflict between George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? derived from Maas's and Menken's tempestuous and volatile relationship.

Production history edit

Original production edit

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on 13 October 1962. The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. It was directed by Alan Schneider. Subsequent cast members included Henderson Forsythe, Eileen Fulton, Nancy Kelly, Mercedes McCambridge, and Elaine Stritch.

Because of the play's unusual length (over three hours), the producers also cast a matinee company that performed twice a week, featuring Kate Reid as Martha, Shepperd Strudwick as George, Avra Petrides as Honey and Bill Berger as Nick.[15] As with the evening company, these matinee performances also sold out.[16]

The play closed on 16 May 1964, after 5 previews and 664 performances.[17] It opened in London in 1965, starring Constance Cummings. Virginia Woolf’s widower Leonard attended a performance and enjoyed it, according to an acquaintance of his, literary critic Leon Edel.[18]

Original Broadway cast album edit

In 1963, Columbia Masterworks released a four-LP (long-playing) boxed recording of the original Broadway cast performing the entire play, directed by Alan Schneider.

The release contained a 16 page booklet with photos from the original production, critical essays by Harold Clurman and Walter Kerr, cast and crew biographies, and a short article by Goddard Lieberson on the task of recording the play. The introduction is by Albee, in which he writes, "I cannot conceive of anyone wanting to buy [this] massive album; but ... every playwright wants as much permanence for his work as he can get."

The recording was issued in both stereo (DOS 687) and monaural (DOL 287) formats. It was out of print for many years, was not released in other formats, and is highly prized among collectors, as a play with such adult themes had never been recorded for the general public before. It was finally re-released in 2014 by Masterworks Broadway.[19]

Notable productions edit

In 1970, Henry Fonda and Richard Burton attempted to recruit Warren Beatty and Jon Voight for an all-male production, but Albee refused permission.[20]

Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara starred in a 1976 Broadway revival.

Mike Nichols and Elaine May starred in a 1980 production in New Haven.

Diana Rigg and David Suchet starred in a 1996 production of the play at the Almeida Theatre in London before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End in 1997.

Patrick Stewart and Mercedes Ruehl starred in a 2000–2001 production at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

The play was revived on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre, opening on 12 March 2005, in previews and closing on 4 September 2005, after 8 previews and 177 performances. Directed by Anthony Page, it starred Kathleen Turner as Martha and Bill Irwin as George, with Mireille Enos as Honey and David Harbour as Nick. Irwin won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role.[21] The production transferred to London's West End at the Apollo Theatre with the entire original cast, running from 31 January to 13 May 2006.[22] In January 2007, the production played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, for one month. On 6 February 2007, the production began a six-week run at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Notably, it was this 2005 production that led to the publication of a revised script – one that has been used ever since – although many of its revisions were introduced in earlier productions. Among the revisions was the removal of early references to George and Martha's child, as well as the reference to the fact that George felt that he helped cause his parents' death, which was originally the subject of his failed novel. A roughly 7 page scene with George and Honey at the end of Act II has also been removed completely. These and other changes seem to be there to clarify plot points, but arguably rob the play of some of its ambiguity and tenuous relationship with realism.

The play toured in the US and played in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre from 11 April – 12 May 2007.

On 12 December 2010, the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago began performances of the play featuring Amy Morton as Martha, Tracy Letts (the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of August: Osage County)[23] as George, Carrie Coon, and Madison Dirks. The production was directed by Pam MacKinnon, who previously directed the premieres of Albee's Peter and Jerry and Occupant. This production began previews on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on 27 September 2012, opening on 13 October, 50 years after the original Broadway opening.[24][25] MacKinnon again directed, with the Steppenwolf cast reprising their roles. The production and cast received praise in The New York Times from reviewer Charles Isherwood.[26] Letts won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.[27]

Meg Tilly returned to acting in 2011 to play Martha in a production by Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre.[28][29] The show ran from 5 July – 17 July 2011, in Victoria, British Columbia.

On 21 February 2017, a production directed by James Macdonald began at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, featuring Imelda Staunton, Conleth Hill, Imogen Poots, and Luke Treadaway.[30][31] It ran until 27 May 2017.

A Broadway revival was scheduled to premiere on 9 April 2020, in a production directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Scott Rudin. It was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic after 9 preview performances, without officially opening.[32] It starred Laurie Metcalf, Rupert Everett, Russell Tovey, and Patsy Ferran.[33] Eddie Izzard had been set to play George, but it was announced on 11 September 2019, that Everett would replace her.[34]

Dance interpretation edit

In 1995 and 1996, the Canadian One Yellow Rabbit troupe mounted a homage in dance to Albee, Permission, in the form of an hourlong ballet inspired by Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It was performed in Calgary, Toronto, Phoenix, Guadalajara, and Mexico City.[35]

Sequels and parodies edit

In 2018 the Elevator Repair Service premiered a sequel written by Kate Scelsa, titled Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf. This play introduces new plot elements such as vampirism.[36]

Season 2, Episode 1, of American Dad! features a sub-plot in which the characters of Roger and Francine pretend to be a university professor and his wife. After inviting over a young couple, the two behave much like the characters of George and Martha. The episode concludes with Roger “killing” their imaginary child much like George does in the play.[37]

Awards edit

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962–1963 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Its stars won the 1963 Tony Awards for Best Actor and Actress. It was selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama by that award's drama jury, but the award's advisory board – the trustees of Columbia University – objected to its profanity and sexual themes, and overruled the jury, awarding no Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1963.[38]

The 2012 revival won the 2013 Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Letts), and Best Direction of a Play (MacKinnon).

Film edit

A film adaptation of the play was released in 1966. It was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, Richard Burton as George, George Segal as Nick and Sandy Dennis as Honey. All four major actors were nominated for Academy Awards: Taylor and Burton for Best Actress and Actor and Dennis and Segal for Supporting Oscars. Taylor won the Oscar for Best Actress but Burton was passed over that year in favor of Paul Scofield in A Man For All Seasons. Dennis won Best Actress in a Supporting Role, while Segal lost to Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie.

Jack Valenti identified the film as the first controversial film he had to deal with as president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It was the first to use the slang "screw" and the phrase "hump the hostess". As he said,

"In company with the MPAA's general counsel, Louis Nizer, I met with Jack Warner, the legendary chieftain of Warner, and his top aide, Ben Kalmenson. We talked for three hours, and the result was deletion of 'screw' and retention of 'hump the hostess', but I was uneasy over the meeting."[39]

Original film soundtrack album edit

The film was given a "Deluxe Edition Two-Record Set" soundtrack album release in 1967 by Warner Bros. Records, and was the first film to have its vocals be released in their entirety on an album, as the film at that time could not be shown on network television.[clarification needed] It contains the vocals of the four actors performing in the film. The only music on the album is a song, "Virginia Woolf Rock", that plays while Martha and Nick are dancing (but plays a little differently than it does in the film).

In at least two instances alternative takes were used: Taylor's memorable "Goddamn you!" line is restored to "Screw you!", and some of the dialogue from the dancing sequence was lifted from another take. As Martha tells Nick and Honey her story about punching George in the stomach in front of her father, it is heard very clearly while in the film it becomes muffled as the camera follows George into another room to get a gun. The album also runs half an hour shorter than the film, since most pauses and long silences were removed, but virtually every line remains intact. The album's cover has the four main actors and the back cover has some background information about them, the five-month shooting schedule, and Albee, and a brief synopsis of the film.

Print edition edit

The print edition of the play was published in 1962 and was one of the early releases of Atheneum Books. The print edition went on to sell over 70,000 copies in hard and soft cover editions.[40]

References edit

  1. ^ Albee, Edward (1962). Who'Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Atheneum Books. pp. 57–59.
  2. ^ "Drink, drink and be merry". University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre. Theater Jones (review). 30 September 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2012 – via theaterjones.com.
  3. ^ Flanagan, William (1966). "Edward Albee: The art of the theatre". Paris Review. Vol. 39. p. 33.
  4. ^ a b Kingsley, Lawrence (March 1973). "Reality and illusion: Continuity of a theme in Albee". Educational Theatre Journal. 25 (1): 71–74.
  5. ^ Morgan, T.B. (26 May 1967). "Angry playwright in soft spell". Life.
  6. ^ Meyer, Ruth (March 1968). "Language: Truth and illusion in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Educational Theatre Journal. 20 (1): 69. 20th-century American theatre issue
  7. ^ Bigsby, C.W. (October 1967). "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee's morality play". Journal of American Studies. 1 (2): 268.
  8. ^ Jones, Josh (26 August 2013). "Virginia Woolf's Handwritten Suicide Note: A Painful and Poignant Farewell (1941)". Open Culture. from the original on 24 February 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  9. ^ So Much More Than Virginia’s Husband |page=section 7, page 7|first=Leon|author-link=Leon Edel|work=The New York Times|date=October 29, 1989|access-date=November 12, 2023
  10. ^ So Much More Than Virginia’s Husband |page=section 7, page 7|first=Leon|author-link=Leon Edel|work=The New York Times|date=October 29, 1989|access-date=November 12, 2023
  11. ^ Flanagan, William (Fall 1966). (PDF). The Paris Review. 4 (39). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2008.
  12. ^ "Unintimidated". The Talk of the Town. The New Yorker. 30 November 1957. p. 45. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  13. ^ Overbey, Erin (29 January 2013). "A history of polite graffiti". The New Yorker. Perhaps this was the very same scribbling the magazine had noted in its pages nearly five years before the play's début.
  14. ^ Gussow, Mel (2001). Edward Albee: A Singular Journey : A biography. New York: Applause Theatre Books. pp. 185–186. ISBN 1-55783-447-4 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ "A director's double trouble – rehearsing 2 casts for 1 show". The New York Herald Tribune. 11 October 1962.
  16. ^ Gussow, Mel (27 November 2012). Edward Albee: A singular journey. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1476711706. Retrieved March 23, 2018 – via Google Books.
  17. ^ "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". 1962, Nederlander Theatre, Broadway. Playbill. October 1962. Retrieved 10 July 2022 – via playbill.com.
  18. ^ So Much More Than Virginia’s Husband |page=section 7, page 7|first=Leon|author-link=Leon Edel|work=The New York Times|date=October 29, 1989|access-date=November 12, 2023
  19. ^ Isherwood, Charles (9 March 2014). "Sodden savages in their first flush: Listening to the original Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Theater. The New York Times (review).
  20. ^ Horn, Barbara Lee (2003). Edward Albee: A research and production sourcebook. Westport, CT: Praeger. p. 245. ISBN 978-0313311413 – via Google Books.
  21. ^ "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". 2005 Broadway. Internet Broadway Database (listing). Retrieved 14 June 2012 – via IBDB.com.
  22. ^ . Apollo Theatre, 2006, London. This is Theatre (listing). Archived from the original on 2012-08-15. Retrieved 14 June 2012 – via thisistheatre.com.
  23. ^ "The 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winners". Drama. Pulitzer Prize. 2008 – via pulitzer.org.
  24. ^ . Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2012 – via virginiawoolfonbroadway.com.
  25. ^ Jones, Kenneth (13 June 2012). "'George and Martha' will settle into Broadway's booth for 50th anniversary of Albee's Virginia Woolf". Playbill. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  26. ^ Isherwood, C. (14 October 2012). "Taking no prisoners in boozy, brutal head games". Theater. The New York Times (review). Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  27. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (2013-06-06). "'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at the Tonys". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
  28. ^ Chamberlain, Adrian (7 July 2011). "Meg Tilly's leap of faith". Times Colonist (digital ed.). Victoria, BC. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  29. ^ . Plays & schedules. Victoria, BC: Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre. Archived from the original on 18 September 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2012 – via bluebridgetheatre.ca.
  30. ^ "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". London Theatre Guide. Retrieved 2017-03-31 – via londontheatre.co.uk.
  31. ^ "Dream casting announced for a timely revival of one of the greatest plays ever written". London Box Office. 23 September 2016 – via londonboxoffice.co.uk.
  32. ^ "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf announces Broadway closing". Broadway World. 21 March 2020 – via broadwayworld.com.
  33. ^ "Laurie Metcalf, Eddie Izzard to star in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway". Entertainment Weekly. 13 April 2019. Retrieved 13 April 2019 – via EW.com.
  34. ^ Gans, Andrew (11 September 2019). "Rupert Everett replaces Eddie Izzard in Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Broadway News. Playbill. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  35. ^ "Performance 1987–1999". One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre – via oyr.org.
  36. ^ Brantley, Ben (12 June 2018). "George and Martha redux in Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf". The New York Times (review). Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  37. ^ "Camp refoogee IMDb". Trivia. Internet Movie Database. 26 April 2023. tr4377597 (tt0818273). Retrieved April 26, 2023 – via IMDb.com.
  38. ^ Klein, Alvin (24 May 1998). "Albee's Tiny Alice, the whole enchilada". The New York Times. p. CT11.
  39. ^ Valenti, Jack (c. 2006). . Film ratings / history. Motion Picture Association of America. Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2008 – via mpaa.org.
  40. ^ Claridge, Laura P. (12 April 2016). The lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, literary tastemaker extraordinaire (biography) (1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 9780374114251. OCLC 908176194.

External links edit

  • ​Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?​ (list of productions) at the Internet Broadway Database
  • ​Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?​ (1962 production) at the Internet Broadway Database
  • Billington, Michael (1 February 2006). "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Reviews. The Guardian. Apollo Theater, London. London. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? original cast recording (video). Columbia Masterworks – via YouTube.

afraid, virginia, woolf, 1966, film, adaptation, film, play, edward, albee, first, staged, october, 1962, examines, complexities, marriage, middle, aged, couple, martha, george, late, evening, after, university, faculty, party, they, receive, unwitting, younge. For the 1966 film adaptation see Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf film Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962 It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle aged couple Martha and George Late one evening after a university faculty party they receive an unwitting younger couple Nick and Honey as guests and draw them into their bitter and frustrated relationship Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1962 Broadway posterWritten byEdward AlbeeCharactersMarthaGeorgeNickHoneyDate premieredOctober 13 1962Place premieredBroadway Billy Rose TheatreOriginal languageEnglishSubjectMarital strifeGenreDramaSettingMartha and George s New England homeThe play is in three acts normally taking a little less than three hours to perform with two 10 minute intermissions The title is a pun on the song Who s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf from Walt Disney s Three Little Pigs 1933 substituting the name of the celebrated English author Virginia Woolf Martha and George repeatedly sing this version of the song throughout the play Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962 1963 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play It is frequently revived on the modern stage The film adaptation was released in 1966 written by Ernest Lehman directed by Mike Nichols and starring Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor George Segal and Sandy Dennis Contents 1 Plot summary 1 1 Act One Fun and Games 1 2 Act Two Walpurgisnacht 1 3 Act Three The Exorcism 2 Themes 2 1 Reality and illusion 2 2 Critique of societal expectations 3 Inspirations 3 1 Title 3 2 Characters 4 Production history 4 1 Original production 4 1 1 Original Broadway cast album 4 2 Notable productions 4 3 Dance interpretation 5 Sequels and parodies 6 Awards 7 Film 7 1 Original film soundtrack album 8 Print edition 9 References 10 External linksPlot summary editAct One Fun and Games edit George is an associate professor of history and Martha his wife is the daughter of the president of the college where George teaches After they return home from a faculty party Martha reveals she has invited a young married couple she met at the party over for a drink Just before the couple Nick and Honey arrive George gives a vague warning about the bit with the kid that Martha appears to understand As the four drink Martha and George engage in scathing verbal abuse of each other in front of Nick and Honey These interactions embarrass the younger couple but they stay At a point Honey lets on that Martha told her about their son which appears to unnerve George After this Martha s taunts and George s passive aggression only increase When Martha launches into an embarrassing story about how she humiliated him with a sucker punch at a backyard party George disappears The story continues with Nick and Honey laughing until George appears with a rifle and fires at Martha To their surprise a Chinese parasol pops out of the gun barrel Everyone finds this extremely funny but Martha s taunts quickly resume culminating in Martha relating how her father thought George would eventually rise to lead the college but George s lack of ambition has made him pathetic to Martha who calls him a great big fat flop 1 George reacts violently by breaking a bottle Honey who has grown more and more deliriously drunk quickly runs to the bathroom to vomit leaving George alone with glass all over the room Act Two Walpurgisnacht edit Traditionally Walpurgisnacht is the name of an annual witches meeting satiric in the context of the play Nick returns to find George alone As they talk about their wives Nick reveals that Honey once had a hysterical pregnancy George tells Nick about a time he went to a gin mill with some boarding school classmates one of whom had accidentally killed his mother by shooting her This friend was mocked for ordering bergin bourbon The following summer the young friend was driving with his father and suddenly swerved to avoid a porcupine accidentally killing his father The boy was then sent to an asylum and became mute As the story concludes George and Nick discuss children but the conversation turns insulting before Martha and Honey return Honey calls for music so they put a record on Because George refuses to dance Martha dances with Nick taunting George by making the dance very sensual while also telling another embarrassing story about George his efforts to publish a novel about a boy who accidentally killed both of his parents with the insinuation that the deaths were actually murder but Martha s father would not let it be published George attacks Martha but Nick separates them Clearly not satisfied George launches into a new game called Get the Guests in which George begins telling a story about a mousie that is a thinly veiled retelling of everything Nick has told George about Honey including her alcoholism and her hysterical pregnancy implying that Honey trapped Nick into marrying her by pretending to be pregnant Honey devastated runs to the bathroom again to throw up Martha begins to openly seduce Nick in the living room right in front of George who blithely smiles and pretends to read a book This greatly annoys Martha who tells George that if he does nothing to stop her she ll have sex with Nick George is unmoved so Martha goes upstairs with Nick Immediately an enraged George throws his book against the house s doorbell chimes which ring out as he promises to make Martha regret this In all productions until 2005 Honey then returns wondering who rang the doorbell George then interrogates Honey about her pregnancy then openly tells Honey that he is going to inform Martha that their son has died In what is labeled the Definitive Edition of the script however this scene is cut 2 Act Three The Exorcism edit Exorcism is the expulsion or attempted expulsion of a supposed evil spirit from a person or place Martha enters into an empty living room and shouts for the others to come out of hiding Nick joins her The doorbell rings and George enters carrying snapdragons and making literary jokes that Martha seems to actually enjoy Martha and George then argue about whether the moon is up an odd game whose metaphors reveal that Nick was too drunk to have sex with Martha upstairs George asks Nick to bring Honey back for the final game Bringing Up Baby Nick and Honey sit helplessly as George at last talks openly about his and Martha s son As he accuses Martha of being overbearing to their son she protests leading George to ask for her recitation Martha agrees and begins recalling their son s beauty and talents and accuses George of ruining his life As she speaks George recites sections of the Libera me part of the Requiem Mass the Latin mass for the dead and Kyrie eleison ancient Greek Lord have mercy This continues until George informs Martha that the doorbell earlier was a messenger from Western Union arriving with a telegram that George says informed him that their son was dead having been killed in a car crash when he swerved to avoid a porcupine the exact wording that George earlier used in a story about a completely different person Martha demands proof but George insists on the reality of the situation Martha distraught collapses It slowly dawns on Nick that the son George and Martha have been talking about is not real The fictional son is a game the two have been playing since discovering early in their marriage that they are infertile George has decided to kill him because Martha broke the game s single rule not to mention the boy to anyone else Overcome with pity Nick and Honey leave Martha suggests they could invent a new imaginary child but George insists they cannot The play ends with George singing Who s afraid of Virginia Woolf a joke song someone sang that night at the faculty party Martha weakly replies I am George I am Themes editReality and illusion edit Albee has said that the title of the play means who s afraid of the big bad wolf who s afraid of living life without false illusions 3 4 pp 71 72 Albee s interest in the theme of reality versus illusion is expressed in a number of his plays In discussing Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf he cites Nietzsche s interpretation of the Apollonian Dionysian dichotomy of ancient Greek drama as described in The Birth of Tragedy Albee says There was a time when people believed in deities And then revolutions came industrial French Freudian Marxist God and absolutes vanished Individuals find this very difficult and uncomfortable All they have left is fantasy or the examination of the self 5 According to Lawrence Kingsley Albee s characters create illusions to help them evade feelings of their own inadequacy as George and Martha have evaded the ugliness of their marriage by taking refuge in illusion The play demonstrates how his characters must rid themselves of falsehood and return to the world in which they must live 4 pp 71 74 The distinction between truth and illusion is at times deliberately unclear The existence of the child the murder by George of his parents or Honey s pregnancy may be illusions but they still seem real to the characters Illusions may be exorcised in the play but no truth or apparent reality is supplied in its place All truth George says becomes relative 6 Critique of societal expectations edit Christopher Bigsby asserts that this play opposes the idea of a perfect American family and societal expectations as it attacks the false optimism and myopic confidence of modern society 7 Albee takes a heavy handed approach to displaying this contrast making examples of every character and their expectations of the people around them Societal norms of the 1950s consisted of a nuclear family two parents and two or more children This conception was picturesque in the idea that the father was the breadwinner the mother a housewife and the children well behaved Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf smashes these conventions and shows realistic families that are far from perfect and possibly ruined The families of Honey and Martha were dominated by their fathers with no sign of a mother figure in their lives George and Martha s chance at a perfect family was ruined by infertility and George s failure to become a prominent figure at the university Inspirations editTitle edit The play s title alludes to the English novelist Virginia Woolf She committed suicide at age 59 in 1941 She left behind a note in which she expressed love for her husband Leonard Woolf and sorrow for the anguish she was causing him 8 Twenty years later playwright Edward Albee corresponded with him asking permission to use his late wife s name in the title of a new play according to literary critic Leon Edel an acquaintance of Leonard Woolf 9 Woolf granted permission according to Edel 10 Edward Albee s title also pokes fun at the song Who s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf from Walt Disney s animated version of The Three Little Pigs Because the rights to the Disney song are expensive most stage versions and the film have Martha sing to the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush a melody that fits the meter fairly well and is in the public domain In the first few moments of the play it is revealed that someone sang the song earlier in the evening at a party although who first sang it Martha or some other anonymous party guest remains unclear Martha repeatedly needles George over whether he found it funny Albee described the inspiration for the title I was in there at a saloon in New York having a beer one night and I saw Who s afraid of Virginia Woolf scrawled in soap I suppose on this mirror When I started to write the play it cropped up in my mind again And of course who s afraid of Virginia Woolf means who s afraid of the big bad wolf who s afraid of living life without false illusions And it did strike me as being a rather typical university intellectual joke 11 The title phrase happened to appear five years before the play s premiere in a 1957 issue of The New Yorker A coffee fiend we know dropped into an espresso joint in Greenwich Village the other day and found himself whiling away his time reading the graffiti on the wall beside his chair Most of the stuff was pretty humdrum but he was arrested by a legend done in elegant calligraphy that read Who s afraid of Virginia Woolf 12 The New Yorker responded in 2013 by suggesting that perhaps the graffiti that Albee saw was the same graffiti that The New Yorker reported in 1957 13 Characters edit In an interview Albee said Martha and George were based on two of his friends the married New York socialites Willard Maas and Marie Menken 14 Maas was a professor of literature at Wagner College and Menken was an experimental filmmaker and painter Maas and Menken were known for their infamous salons where drinking would commence at 4 PM on Friday and end in the wee hours of night on Monday according to Gerard Malanga an Andy Warhol associate and friend to Maas The primary conflict between George and Martha in Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf derived from Maas s and Menken s tempestuous and volatile relationship Production history editOriginal production edit Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on 13 October 1962 The original cast featured Uta Hagen as Martha Arthur Hill as George Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick It was directed by Alan Schneider Subsequent cast members included Henderson Forsythe Eileen Fulton Nancy Kelly Mercedes McCambridge and Elaine Stritch Because of the play s unusual length over three hours the producers also cast a matinee company that performed twice a week featuring Kate Reid as Martha Shepperd Strudwick as George Avra Petrides as Honey and Bill Berger as Nick 15 As with the evening company these matinee performances also sold out 16 The play closed on 16 May 1964 after 5 previews and 664 performances 17 It opened in London in 1965 starring Constance Cummings Virginia Woolf s widower Leonard attended a performance and enjoyed it according to an acquaintance of his literary critic Leon Edel 18 Original Broadway cast album edit In 1963 Columbia Masterworks released a four LP long playing boxed recording of the original Broadway cast performing the entire play directed by Alan Schneider The release contained a 16 page booklet with photos from the original production critical essays by Harold Clurman and Walter Kerr cast and crew biographies and a short article by Goddard Lieberson on the task of recording the play The introduction is by Albee in which he writes I cannot conceive of anyone wanting to buy this massive album but every playwright wants as much permanence for his work as he can get The recording was issued in both stereo DOS 687 and monaural DOL 287 formats It was out of print for many years was not released in other formats and is highly prized among collectors as a play with such adult themes had never been recorded for the general public before It was finally re released in 2014 by Masterworks Broadway 19 Notable productions edit In 1970 Henry Fonda and Richard Burton attempted to recruit Warren Beatty and Jon Voight for an all male production but Albee refused permission 20 Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara starred in a 1976 Broadway revival Mike Nichols and Elaine May starred in a 1980 production in New Haven Diana Rigg and David Suchet starred in a 1996 production of the play at the Almeida Theatre in London before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London s West End in 1997 Patrick Stewart and Mercedes Ruehl starred in a 2000 2001 production at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis The play was revived on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre opening on 12 March 2005 in previews and closing on 4 September 2005 after 8 previews and 177 performances Directed by Anthony Page it starred Kathleen Turner as Martha and Bill Irwin as George with Mireille Enos as Honey and David Harbour as Nick Irwin won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role 21 The production transferred to London s West End at the Apollo Theatre with the entire original cast running from 31 January to 13 May 2006 22 In January 2007 the production played at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for one month On 6 February 2007 the production began a six week run at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles Notably it was this 2005 production that led to the publication of a revised script one that has been used ever since although many of its revisions were introduced in earlier productions Among the revisions was the removal of early references to George and Martha s child as well as the reference to the fact that George felt that he helped cause his parents death which was originally the subject of his failed novel A roughly 7 page scene with George and Honey at the end of Act II has also been removed completely These and other changes seem to be there to clarify plot points but arguably rob the play of some of its ambiguity and tenuous relationship with realism The play toured in the US and played in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre from 11 April 12 May 2007 On 12 December 2010 the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago began performances of the play featuring Amy Morton as Martha Tracy Letts the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of August Osage County 23 as George Carrie Coon and Madison Dirks The production was directed by Pam MacKinnon who previously directed the premieres of Albee s Peter and Jerry and Occupant This production began previews on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on 27 September 2012 opening on 13 October 50 years after the original Broadway opening 24 25 MacKinnon again directed with the Steppenwolf cast reprising their roles The production and cast received praise in The New York Times from reviewer Charles Isherwood 26 Letts won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play 27 Meg Tilly returned to acting in 2011 to play Martha in a production by Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre 28 29 The show ran from 5 July 17 July 2011 in Victoria British Columbia On 21 February 2017 a production directed by James Macdonald began at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London featuring Imelda Staunton Conleth Hill Imogen Poots and Luke Treadaway 30 31 It ran until 27 May 2017 A Broadway revival was scheduled to premiere on 9 April 2020 in a production directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Scott Rudin It was canceled due to the COVID 19 pandemic after 9 preview performances without officially opening 32 It starred Laurie Metcalf Rupert Everett Russell Tovey and Patsy Ferran 33 Eddie Izzard had been set to play George but it was announced on 11 September 2019 that Everett would replace her 34 Dance interpretation edit In 1995 and 1996 the Canadian One Yellow Rabbit troupe mounted a homage in dance to Albee Permission in the form of an hourlong ballet inspired by Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf It was performed in Calgary Toronto Phoenix Guadalajara and Mexico City 35 Sequels and parodies editIn 2018 the Elevator Repair Service premiered a sequel written by Kate Scelsa titled Everyone s Fine with Virginia Woolf This play introduces new plot elements such as vampirism 36 Season 2 Episode 1 of American Dad features a sub plot in which the characters of Roger and Francine pretend to be a university professor and his wife After inviting over a young couple the two behave much like the characters of George and Martha The episode concludes with Roger killing their imaginary child much like George does in the play 37 Awards editWho s Afraid of Virginia Woolf won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962 1963 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play Its stars won the 1963 Tony Awards for Best Actor and Actress It was selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama by that award s drama jury but the award s advisory board the trustees of Columbia University objected to its profanity and sexual themes and overruled the jury awarding no Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1963 38 The 2012 revival won the 2013 Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play Letts and Best Direction of a Play MacKinnon Film editMain article Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf film A film adaptation of the play was released in 1966 It was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Elizabeth Taylor as Martha Richard Burton as George George Segal as Nick and Sandy Dennis as Honey All four major actors were nominated for Academy Awards Taylor and Burton for Best Actress and Actor and Dennis and Segal for Supporting Oscars Taylor won the Oscar for Best Actress but Burton was passed over that year in favor of Paul Scofield in A Man For All Seasons Dennis won Best Actress in a Supporting Role while Segal lost to Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie Jack Valenti identified the film as the first controversial film he had to deal with as president of the Motion Picture Association of America MPAA It was the first to use the slang screw and the phrase hump the hostess As he said In company with the MPAA s general counsel Louis Nizer I met with Jack Warner the legendary chieftain of Warner and his top aide Ben Kalmenson We talked for three hours and the result was deletion of screw and retention of hump the hostess but I was uneasy over the meeting 39 Original film soundtrack album edit This section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed January 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message The film was given a Deluxe Edition Two Record Set soundtrack album release in 1967 by Warner Bros Records and was the first film to have its vocals be released in their entirety on an album as the film at that time could not be shown on network television clarification needed It contains the vocals of the four actors performing in the film The only music on the album is a song Virginia Woolf Rock that plays while Martha and Nick are dancing but plays a little differently than it does in the film In at least two instances alternative takes were used Taylor s memorable Goddamn you line is restored to Screw you and some of the dialogue from the dancing sequence was lifted from another take As Martha tells Nick and Honey her story about punching George in the stomach in front of her father it is heard very clearly while in the film it becomes muffled as the camera follows George into another room to get a gun The album also runs half an hour shorter than the film since most pauses and long silences were removed but virtually every line remains intact The album s cover has the four main actors and the back cover has some background information about them the five month shooting schedule and Albee and a brief synopsis of the film Print edition editThe print edition of the play was published in 1962 and was one of the early releases of Atheneum Books The print edition went on to sell over 70 000 copies in hard and soft cover editions 40 References edit Albee Edward 1962 Who Afraid of Virginia Woolf Atheneum Books pp 57 59 Drink drink and be merry University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre Theater Jones review 30 September 2011 Retrieved 15 October 2012 via theaterjones com Flanagan William 1966 Edward Albee The art of the theatre Paris Review Vol 39 p 33 a b Kingsley Lawrence March 1973 Reality and illusion Continuity of a theme in Albee Educational Theatre Journal 25 1 71 74 Morgan T B 26 May 1967 Angry playwright in soft spell Life Meyer Ruth March 1968 Language Truth and illusion in Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Educational Theatre Journal 20 1 69 20th century American theatre issue Bigsby C W October 1967 Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Edward Albee s morality play Journal of American Studies 1 2 268 Jones Josh 26 August 2013 Virginia Woolf s Handwritten Suicide Note A Painful and Poignant Farewell 1941 Open Culture Archived from the original on 24 February 2018 Retrieved 18 February 2018 So Much More Than Virginia s Husband page section 7 page 7 first Leon author link Leon Edel work The New York Times date October 29 1989 access date November 12 2023 So Much More Than Virginia s Husband page section 7 page 7 first Leon author link Leon Edel work The New York Times date October 29 1989 access date November 12 2023 Flanagan William Fall 1966 The art of theater No Edward Albee PDF The Paris Review 4 39 Archived from the original PDF on 29 May 2008 Retrieved 17 June 2008 Unintimidated The Talk of the Town The New Yorker 30 November 1957 p 45 Retrieved 2019 05 27 Overbey Erin 29 January 2013 A history of polite graffiti The New Yorker Perhaps this was the very same scribbling the magazine had noted in its pages nearly five years before the play s debut Gussow Mel 2001 Edward Albee A Singular Journey A biography New York Applause Theatre Books pp 185 186 ISBN 1 55783 447 4 via Internet Archive A director s double trouble rehearsing 2 casts for 1 show The New York Herald Tribune 11 October 1962 Gussow Mel 27 November 2012 Edward Albee A singular journey Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 1476711706 Retrieved March 23 2018 via Google Books Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1962 Nederlander Theatre Broadway Playbill October 1962 Retrieved 10 July 2022 via playbill com So Much More Than Virginia s Husband page section 7 page 7 first Leon author link Leon Edel work The New York Times date October 29 1989 access date November 12 2023 Isherwood Charles 9 March 2014 Sodden savages in their first flush Listening to the original Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf Theater The New York Times review Horn Barbara Lee 2003 Edward Albee A research and production sourcebook Westport CT Praeger p 245 ISBN 978 0313311413 via Google Books Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 2005 Broadway Internet Broadway Database listing Retrieved 14 June 2012 via IBDB com Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Apollo Theatre 2006 London This is Theatre listing Archived from the original on 2012 08 15 Retrieved 14 June 2012 via thisistheatre com The 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winners Drama Pulitzer Prize 2008 via pulitzer org Edward Albee s Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Pam McKinnon Archived from the original on 18 December 2014 Retrieved 15 September 2012 via virginiawoolfonbroadway com Jones Kenneth 13 June 2012 George and Martha will settle into Broadway s booth for 50th anniversary of Albee s Virginia Woolf Playbill Retrieved 10 July 2022 Isherwood C 14 October 2012 Taking no prisoners in boozy brutal head games Theater The New York Times review Retrieved 15 October 2012 Schuessler Jennifer 2013 06 06 Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Tonys The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2023 08 26 Chamberlain Adrian 7 July 2011 Meg Tilly s leap of faith Times Colonist digital ed Victoria BC Retrieved 2 February 2012 Edward Albee s Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Plays amp schedules Victoria BC Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre Archived from the original on 18 September 2011 Retrieved 2 February 2012 via bluebridgetheatre ca Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf London Theatre Guide Retrieved 2017 03 31 via londontheatre co uk Dream casting announced for a timely revival of one of the greatest plays ever written London Box Office 23 September 2016 via londonboxoffice co uk Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf announces Broadway closing Broadway World 21 March 2020 via broadwayworld com Laurie Metcalf Eddie Izzard to star in Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway Entertainment Weekly 13 April 2019 Retrieved 13 April 2019 via EW com Gans Andrew 11 September 2019 Rupert Everett replaces Eddie Izzard in Broadway revival of Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Broadway News Playbill Retrieved 16 May 2023 Performance 1987 1999 One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre via oyr org Brantley Ben 12 June 2018 George and Martha redux in Everyone s Fine with Virginia Woolf The New York Times review Retrieved June 13 2018 Camp refoogee IMDb Trivia Internet Movie Database 26 April 2023 tr4377597 tt0818273 Retrieved April 26 2023 via IMDb com Klein Alvin 24 May 1998 Albee s Tiny Alice the whole enchilada The New York Times p CT11 Valenti Jack c 2006 How it all began Film ratings history Motion Picture Association of America Archived from the original on 21 May 2008 Retrieved 17 June 2008 via mpaa org Claridge Laura P 12 April 2016 The lady with the Borzoi Blanche Knopf literary tastemaker extraordinaire biography 1st ed New York Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 9780374114251 OCLC 908176194 External links edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf list of productions at the Internet Broadway Database Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1962 production at the Internet Broadway Database Billington Michael 1 February 2006 Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Reviews The Guardian Apollo Theater London London Retrieved 16 May 2023 Who s Afraid of Virginia Wolf original cast recording video Columbia Masterworks via YouTube Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Who 27s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 3F amp oldid 1186238741, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.