Adultery and Disappointment in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

ADULTERY AND DISAPPOINTMENT IN WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf IS IN MANY WAYS a remarkable play. The characterization is original, and the dialogue, even when it is most extravagantly absurd, has a convincing human rhythm. But it is, finally, an unsatisfactory play, a play of half-heartedly developed ideas, a play that does not live up to its promise. It is difficult to say whether Albee's difficulty with the play was ultimately structural or thematic, but it is obvious that by the time we get to the third act the mood and tone sustained through the first two acts is abandoned in favor of something less satisfying. Instead of the brutal game of "Hump the Hostess" we are treated to a sentimental reconciliation which is hardly in keeping with the rest of the play. It is true that in an earlier episode involving a toy gun Albee cleverly suggests that the adultery will not take place: NICK. (As George hands him his drink): Where's the john? GEORGE. Through the hall there . . . and down to your left. HONEY. Don't you come back with any guns, or anything, now. NICK. (Laughs): Oh, no. MARTHA. You don't need any props, do you, baby? NICK. Unh-unh. MARTHA. (Suggestive): I'll bet not. No fake Jap gun for you, eh? But skillful structural preparation does not always carry with it an automatic guarantee of dramatic acceptance. As we shall see, the adultery is a central issue in the play, not as a physical action, but as the means of suggesting an even deeper kind of "betrayal." It is clearly the culmination of the conflicts Albee has so painstakingly dramatized earlier. In fact, so much hinges on its taking place that Albee's reluctance to see it through constitutes a serious dramatic failure. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf has justifiably been associated with recent Absurdist drama. Some people, in fact, have taken it to be just that. The comic re-appearance of the "porcupine," the songs, the dances, the movie roles, and even the episode of the gun tend to support that view. And the Absurdist interpretation permits us to dismiss many of the play's puzzling qualities as vaguely-suggestive Absurdist hi-jinx. But good Absurdist plays no matter how ridiculous 432 1969 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 433 are firmly rooted in human experience, and this play bears more than a passing resemblance to real life. The house, the furnishings, the setting are realistic, and particular care is taken to provide the realistic backdrop of the college community. That backdrop not only supplies the author with characters of sufficient sophistication; it is also the means of supplying motivation for much of what happens on stage. If the characterizations do not fully explain the absurdity of the "fun and games," there are always the liquor and the hour to be considered. Nick at one point has to "disqualify" himself because ten hours of drinking is too much for him. A more serious disqualification is his lack of practice. George and Martha are adept at "the game" since for them it has become a way of life. GEORGE. • •• What made you decide to be a teacher? NICK. Oh ... well, the same things that ... uh ... motivated you, I imagine. GEORGE. What were they? NICK. (Formal) Pardon? GEORGE. I said, what were they? What were the things that motivated me? NICK. (Laughing uneasily): Well ... I'm sure I don't know. GEORGE. You just finished saying that the things that motivated you were the same things that motivated me. NICK. (With a little pique): I said I imagined they were. GEORGE. Oh. (Off-hand) Did you? (Pause) Well. . . . Note that in this mildly absurd exchange, as elsewhere in the play, the absurd elements are not imposed from without, but come from the characters themselves, from their own self-consciousness. The fact that George and Martha have had so much practice at "the game"-have, in effect, ritualized and institutionalized itagain suggests an Absurdist interpretation in which the events of the evening, like those in Ionesco's The Bald Soprano} will be enacted again and...