Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Truth and Illusion.
ENGLISH LITERATURE ORAL SAC
Cal Stanley
Edward Albee first published his famous American play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in 1962. The play took to the stage with critical praise and can be described as one of the greatest American plays ever written.
Four years later, Director and Producer Mike Nichols adapted the play to the silver screen with one of Hollywood's most acclaimed screenwriters Ernest Lehman, the film released much like the play before it, to a highly positive reception but in the end was said to be faulted for feeling too detached from the play.
The name of the play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, is a play on words and used as a joke within the story. The title, and the joke as well, sum up the very essence of George and Martha's marriage. Virginia Woolf was an English writer and one of the first and most prominent modernists of the time. She became very popular in the London Literature Society and succeeded in showing a sense of truth behind her characters. In a way Virginia Woolf is used as a metaphor for truth and illusion, a theme constantly hinted at in the play.
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who's afraid to live without illusion.
When we are first introduced to the two leads George and Martha, played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in the film, they have arrived home from a party in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
Almost instantly the audience is given an idea of the relationship the couple shares. In the film they enter alone, isolated, framed within their small house a metaphor for the bond they share. Through Albee's witty and fast dialogue, the two engage in an offside and vacant argument about a certain Betty Davis, Warner Bros. epic. Martha insisting that Davis' character arrives home from shopping to a 'modest' house, when in reality the film shows her entering in a much more classy manor. This is the first hint of Truth and Illusion, within the play. Martha doesn't want to fully accept that the
Cal Stanley
Edward Albee first published his famous American play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in 1962. The play took to the stage with critical praise and can be described as one of the greatest American plays ever written.
Four years later, Director and Producer Mike Nichols adapted the play to the silver screen with one of Hollywood's most acclaimed screenwriters Ernest Lehman, the film released much like the play before it, to a highly positive reception but in the end was said to be faulted for feeling too detached from the play.
The name of the play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, is a play on words and used as a joke within the story. The title, and the joke as well, sum up the very essence of George and Martha's marriage. Virginia Woolf was an English writer and one of the first and most prominent modernists of the time. She became very popular in the London Literature Society and succeeded in showing a sense of truth behind her characters. In a way Virginia Woolf is used as a metaphor for truth and illusion, a theme constantly hinted at in the play.
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who's afraid to live without illusion.
When we are first introduced to the two leads George and Martha, played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in the film, they have arrived home from a party in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
Almost instantly the audience is given an idea of the relationship the couple shares. In the film they enter alone, isolated, framed within their small house a metaphor for the bond they share. Through Albee's witty and fast dialogue, the two engage in an offside and vacant argument about a certain Betty Davis, Warner Bros. epic. Martha insisting that Davis' character arrives home from shopping to a 'modest' house, when in reality the film shows her entering in a much more classy manor. This is the first hint of Truth and Illusion, within the play. Martha doesn't want to fully accept that the