Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (The Play)   9/12/2000
San Francisco Playhouse, Seat: n.a.

Characters

• Martha - The fifty-two-year-old wife of a college history professor. Martha defines herself through her "Daddy," the president of the college in the fictitious New England town of New Carthage. In her past, after her mother died when Martha was a child, she attended a convent school and young ladies' junior college.
• George - Forty-six years old and an acknowledged failure. George is in the history department, though much to Martha's chagrin, he is not the head of the history department.
• Nick - Nick is thirty years old and blond, a young genius who received his Master's degree at twenty. He grew up in the Midwest with his wife Honey, whom he knew since childhood. An ambitious new member of the college's biology department.
• Honey - Nick's twenty-six-year-old wife. She's frail and "slim-hipped." Honey is rich, left money by her late evangelist father. She drowns her sorrows in brandy, getting silly and childlike. Honey is the most innocent of all the characters.

Themes

"...[Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is] 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." Edward Albee

American Idealism
George and Martha - named after America's first First Family, George and Martha Washington who's public image and status overshadowed their own private relationship's turmoil.

Nick - named after Cold War Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who's most noteworthy political actions were the initiation of the space program that launched Sputnik, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and as a key player in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Illusion

Edward Albee has said that the title of the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" means "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf"... or who's afraid of living life without illusions.

Spirituality

Walpurgisnacht (Albee's Act Two title) - In Germany, Walpurgisnacht, the night from April 30 to May 1, is the night when witches hold a large celebration and await the arrival of the devil.
How might this apply to the play? What "evil spirits" might inhabit the second act of the play?

Exorcism - The third act title of the play, Albee had originally thought of calling the play The Exorcism.
What is exorcised in the play? Who does this affect the most?

Academia - the struggle for tenure

A professor's quest for tenure at a college, like the one where the play takes place, can mean economic assurance later in life. Many factors contribute to a professor's award of tenure-ship, some of which are a political means of posturing to gain favor from the establishment's decision-makers. Many times a person's goal of tenure is furthered by their desire to obtain a higher position at the university - becoming the head of a particular department is a very sought after job, especially in 1962, when Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was written.

The struggle to advance in academia can be compared to the struggle to advance in any career, sometimes referred to as the career ladder, where reaching the top was the goal of many young people (mostly men in 1962). Most often times, a person's success in life is measured by where they are on their journey up a particular "career ladder".

• What are George and Nick's experiences with the career ladder?
• Do Martha and Honey help with George and Nick's advancement up the career ladder?

Some relevant topics to discuss regarding the play and questions to consider.

Themes :

• Reality versus Illusion - What is real in the play? What are the illusions in the play? Do some characters favor illusion? How does alcohol contribute to Martha's desire for illusion?
• Truth and Lies - Which characters tell the truth in the play? Which characters lie, and what do they lie about? What happens when Nick finds out about George and Martha's lies?
• History (Culture) versus Biology (Science) - George is a professor of history, and Nick is an incoming professor of biology. Considering their occupational fields, are there any clashes between History and Biology? Are there cultural and scientific clashes in our modern times?
• Age - How do the characters feel about their ages? How does age affect the way they treat each other? Do they lie about their ages?
• The American Dream - is the concept widely held in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity. These were the values of the original pioneers who crossed the American plains when Europeans first came to America. How do George's and Nick's journeys through academia mirror the struggle for the American Dream? What are their obstacles?
• Freedom - how does the setting of a small liberal arts college create a microcosm for the characters interaction with Freedom?
• Love and Hate - thinking about the characters' relationships with each other, what varying levels of love and hate do they display towards their significant others? Towards other characters?