Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
- theactorsworks
- Aug 26
- 1 min read
"We both cry all the time, and then, what we do, we cry, and we take our tears, and we put 'em in the ice box, in the goddamn ice trays until they're all frozen and then...we put them...in our...drinks."
Martha
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
THE PLAY
"Now, you listen to me, Martha; you have had quite an evening...quite a night for yourself, and you can't just cut it off whenever you've got enough blood in your mouth." (George)
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? was first performed in 1962. It won of the Tony Award for Best Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.
Martha and her husband, George, are joined one night by a younger couple - Nick and Honey - for drinks after a university faculty party. A drunken night ensues as Martha and George drag Nick and Honey into their complex, bitter dynamic.
THE WRITER
"Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf means who's afraid of the big bad wolf ... who's afraid of living life without false illusions." Edward Albee
American playwright Edward Albee (1928-2016) had a career that spanned from 1959 until his death in 2016.
His style has been described as an American variant of Theatre of the Absurd - developed in Europe through writers like Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet or Eugene Ionesco. Albee's work helped develop post-war American theatre in the 1960s and much of his work critiqued the idea of The American Dream.
