Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Originally Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ) is the most famous play by the American playwright Edward Albee . It premiered on October 13, 1962 at the Billy Rose Theater in New York. The original cast were Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick. Directed by Alan Schneider . The first performance of the German translation by Pinkas Braun took place on October 13, 1963 at the Schloßparktheater Berlin. Directed by Boleslaw Barlog with Maria Becker and Erich Schellow in the leading roles.

The play became famous through Mike Nichols ' film adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1966 (screenplay: Ernest Lehman ). It is now one of the stage classics of the 20th century and has since been re-translated by Alissa and Martin Walser .

action

1st act board games

History professor George (46) and his wife Martha (52), who have been married for 20 years, return home from a party around two in the morning. Martha tells her husband that she has invited a young couple, namely the new biology professor Nick and his wife Honey. Martha's father, the dean of the university, said it was important to get on well with them.
Upset that his wife presents him with a fait accompli, George starts an argument with her. Since both are already intoxicated and continue to drink, the mood continues to heat up. Martha takes the opportunity to humiliate her husband in front of the guests. Nick and Honey become helpless witnesses. Martha hurtfully accuses George of being a failure as a person, as a man and as a historian. George defends himself indirectly by letting Nick see his philosophical superiority.

2nd act Walpurgis Night

Now Nick is exposed as a failure. He married Honey because he believed her imaginary pregnancy was true and wanted the fortune that Honey's father, an itinerant preacher, had amassed.
After George tries to strangle his wife Martha in his rage, she uses increasingly extreme means to show him off and make him look ridiculous. She flirts with Nick until he disappears into Martha's and George's kitchen with her.
Honey, on the other hand, doesn't notice much of this anymore. She gets hopelessly drunk and at some point she becomes delusional and begins to mumble to herself. George stands by and does not react when she apparently dreams of a rape in the course of this delusion. Her sudden cry: “There is a knock!” Ends the scene. Then George comes up with the crucial idea of ​​how he can take revenge for the constant humiliation caused by his wife and how to uncover her innermost unfulfilled wish this morning. As a counter-image to her everyday life, which appears to be desolate, Martha created a son in her imagination who has come a long way. George decides to destroy Martha's life lie.

3rd act expulsion

Against her will, Martha is expelled from the paradise that only exists in her imagination. Through his unauthorized continuation of the story, George lets the son die. The next day this story and thus also the invented son would have become 21 years old and thus of legal age. After Martha and George have buried their non-existent son in an act of mourning that was played out in great detail, it is day: not just an indication of the time, at the same time an indication of overcoming the night into which Martha had fled. When she realizes that she no longer has a son to flee to, she realizes that she is dependent on George as he is dependent on her. Honey first thought about the importance of children; she sees how much Martha misses a son and overcomes her fear of pregnancy and childbirth; she struggles through the decision to want a child - like Martha's leap from the realm of fantasy into reality, an optimistic conclusion.

The title of the play, which the writer Virginia Woolf mentions, is a reference to the children's song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? ( Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? ).

expenditure

  • Edward Albee : Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ...? One piece in three acts 208-212. Thousand. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994 (German first edition 1963), ISBN 3-596-27015-4 (original title: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Translated by Pinkas Braun ).

literature

  • Jürgen Querz: Symbolic and allegorical forms in the drama of Edward Albee: investigation into “The Zoo Story”, “Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?” And “Tiny Alice”. Frankfurt am Main 1969 DNB 482056746 (Dissertation University of Frankfurt am Main, Philosophical Faculty, December 17, 1969, 230 pages).

filming

Awards