TEST 1

_____ 1. Marthas father

A. is adored by George and Martha
B. appears in the last moments of the play
C. is a great influence on Marthas life
_____ 2. Martha is upset with George at the beginning of the play
because he
A. got drunk and made a fool of himself
B. made a pass at Honey
C. didnt participate in the fun
_____ 3. Which of these symbols represents sexual impotence in the play
A. the toy gun
B. the door chimes
C. the telegram
4. The story of the boy who caused his parents death
A. is about Honey
B. might have been invented by George
C. is told by Martha
_____ 5. Which of these words might be applied to Nick?
I. ambitious
II. shallow
III. honest
A. I and II only
B. II and III only
C. all three
_____ 6. Nick married Honey
A. a week before the play begins
B. over the objections of his parents
C. because he thought she was pregnant
_ 7. Which of these themes is not important in the play?
A. truth and illusion
B. gamesmanship
C. friendship
_____ 8. George and Marthas son
A. died years before the play begins
B. is a figment of their imagination
C. had been committed to an asylum
_____ 9. The line I want a child is spoken by
A. Nick
B. Martha
C. Honey
_____ 10. The title of Act III, The Exorcism, applies to
A. Marthas affair with Nick
B. Georges announcement to Martha that their son is dead
C. Honeys inclination to illness

11. Discuss the use of religious symbolism in Whos Afraid of Virginia

Woolf?
12. Compare the characters of George and Nick.
13. Discuss the significance of the titles of the three acts: Fun and Games,
Walpurgisnacht, and The Exorcism.
14. Discuss the use of games in the play.
15. Is Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a hopeful play? Defend your answer.

TEST 2
_____ 1. Honeys father
A. was a preacher
B. advised her to marry Nick
C. represents the devil in the play
_____ 2. When Martha tells the story of the boxing match, George
I. laughs heartily
II. is humiliated
III. retaliates by bringing out the fake shotgun
A. I and III only
B. I and II only
C. II and III only
_____ 3. George warns Martha about bringing up the subject of their
son because
A. he wants to do it
B. Martha exaggerates their sons achievements
C. the son is a private fantasy
4. The theme of history vs. science is best presented by
A. Georges and Nicks professions
B. Honeys father and Marthas father
C. the bergin story
_____ 5. Georges speech about peeling labels is prompted by
A. Marthas announcement that theyre out of liquor
B. Honey, whos lying on the bathroom floor
C. Nicks admission that he had to marry Honey
_____ 6. Honeys tendency to become ill represents
A. her inability to face reality
B. Nicks ambitious drive to the top
C. George and Marthas treatment of her
_____ 7. When Martha says, SNAP! It went snap! shes referring to
A. their marriage
B. her mental condition
C. Georges career
8. George decides to tell Martha their son is dead when
A. Honey wonders why the chimes rang
B. Martha tells Nick and Honey about Georges novel
C. Martha sings Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the

beginning of the play

_____ 9. Georges novel is about
A. his marriage to Martha
B. a boy who caused the death of both his parents
C. his father-in-law
_____ 10. The theme of truth and illusion is best represented by
A. the ringing of the door chimes
B. George and Marthas son
C. Nicks decision to go to bed with Martha
11. Discuss the function of Nick and Honey in Whos Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?
12. Discuss the uses of the song Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
13. What is the importance of children and babies in the play?
14. What is the importance of the imaginary child in Whos Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?
15. In what ways do Nick and Honey change during the play?
THE PLAY
1. Discuss the influence of the Theater of the Absurd on Whos Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?
2. In what way is Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a departure from the realistic
tradition of Eugene ONeill and Tennessee Williams? In what way is it similar?
3. Are the issues presented in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? still vital? Explain.
4. Compare Albees view of the world in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
with that in his play A Delicate Balance.
5. Is Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a hopeful play? A pessimistic one? Explain.
6. The lost or nonexistent child has appeared in other plays by Edward Albee.
Compare the roles in the other plays with the role of the imaginary child in Whos
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
7. It has been said that Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is concerned with
salvaging, not savaging a relationship. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
CHARACTERS
1. Is George a hero or a villain in the play? Explain.
2. In what ways are George and Martha alike? In what ways different?
3. Does Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? have a main character? Who is it?
Defend your answer.
4. Compare the characters of Nick and George, and of Martha and Honey.
5. How does the character of Marthas father influence the play?
6. In what ways are George and Martha likable characters?
7. Discuss the function of Nick and Honey in the play.
8. In what ways are George and Martha allegorical figures?
THEMES
1. In what way does sex function in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
2. Compare the theme of truth and illusion in Whos Afraid of Virginia
Woolf? and Tennessee Williamss A Streetcar Named Desire.

3. Discuss the theme of revenge in the play. What characters are bent on revenge,
and why? How do you think Albee regards revenge?
LITERARY TOPICS
1. In what ways is Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a comedy? Explain.
2. Describe the ways in which the past affects the present in the lives of the four characters.
3. In what ways is Albees dialogue realistic? what ways is it not? Give examples.
4. Discuss Albees use of maxims, metaphors, puns, and humor. Give examples.
5. Explain what is meant by dark comedy and how Whos Afraid of Virginia
Woolf? fits into this category of drama.
THEATRICAL TOPICS
1. What qualities would you look for if you were casting the four characters
of this play?
2. Research three or four contemporary theatrical reviews of the play. Explain
why you agree or disagree with their judgments of the play.

CRITICS

ON THE PLAY
Without attempting to enthrone Albee alongside anyone (though I personally
admire him above all other Americans now writing for the stage), or to hail Virginia
Woolf as a classic of the modern theatre (which I have no doubt it will become
), I would only state that, in my experience, a more honest or moral (in the
true sense) playwright does not exist- unless it be Samuel Beckett... And if what
Albee is doing is giving us a sentimentalized view of ourselves rather than one
as harshly and starkly unsentimental as any I know, why didnt those theatre party
ladies buy it up ahead of time as they do all those other technicolor postcards
which pass for plays? Or is Albee not rather dedicated to smashing that rosy view,
shocking us with the truth of our present-day behavior and thought, striving to
purge us into an actual confrontation with reality?
Alan Schneider, Why So Afraid?
in Tulane Drama Review, 1963
The upsetting thing- the deeply upsetting thing- is that American theatre-goers
and their critics have welcomed this phony play and its writer as the harbinger
of a new wave in the American theatre. The American theatre, our theatre, is so
hungry, so voracious, so corrupt, so morally blind, so perverse that Virginia
Woolf is a success. I am outraged at a theatre and an audience that accepts as a
masterpiece an insufferably long play with great pretensions that lacks intellectualsize, emotional
insight, and dramatic electricity. Im tired of play-long metaphorssuch as the illusory child of Virginia Woolf- which are neither philosophically,
psychologically, nor poetically valid. Im tired of plays that are badly
plotted and turgidly written being excused by such palaver as organic unity or
inner form. Im tired of morbidity and sexual perversity which are there only to
titillate an impotent and homosexual theatre and audience. Im tired of Albee.
Richard Schechner, Whos Afraid of Edward Albee?
in Tulane Drama Review, 1963
ON MARTHA
The characterization of Martha is certainly proof of the authors understanding
of the problems of unfulfilled people. The social conditioning which encouraged
Marthas thwarted expectations, as well as Georges idealism and her
childlessness are all realities which contributed to her disappointment and sorrow.
However, in spite of the material advantages with which she grew up, Martha,
given her loveless childhood- not unlike Jerry in The Zoo Story- entered adult life
as an emotional cripple who doubted her worth as a human being. She did nothing
constructive to help herself to make life bearable for George or for herself...
The residue of her wasted talents and unused energies are released in the form of
abusive behavior toward her husband. Her pain makes her ruthlessly egotistical.
Fairly considered against her given background, there should be little room for
complacency or self-righteousness in an evaluation of this character. If her selfishness and
cruelty make her repugnant, her deep unhappiness and almost dumb suffering
should arouse compassion.
Anita M. Stenz, Edward Albee:
The Poet of Loss, 1978
ON GEORGE

Whatever the truth about his past really is, George worked it out creatively in
the form of a novel. The tragic story of a boy who accidently [sic] shot his mother
and then a year later while trying to avoid hitting a porcupine on the road swerved
the car and drove his father into a tree. Commentators have interpreted what they
perceive as Georges withdrawal and passivity as behavior resulting from his responsibility
as an adolescent for the death of both parents. More in keeping with
the play, whose key phrase spoken throughout by both George and Martha is
Truth and illusion, dont you know the difference?, is the theory that Georges
killing of his parents is symbolic but that there is real guilt attached to his need to
be cruel. This also explains why George waited until it was almost too late before
he was able to bring himself to hurt Martha and himself profoundly enough to
free them both from the mutually destructive pattern of their married life.
Anita M. Stenz, Edward Albee:
The Poet of Loss, 1978
ON GEORGE AND MARTHA
Albee has succeeded in persuading us that Martha, as well as George, is a
genuinely pitiable character. Thus one can say that the plot contains a kind of reversal,
for while Martha had the upper hand over him in her role of his antagonist
during the first two acts, he now has won at the fun-and-games business- but at so
considerable a cost as to amount to only a pyrrhic victory. At least, however, they
communicate, understand each other, and are together at the curtain. They are nevertheless
so weakened by the strain of the exorcism and by the bleak prospect that
lies before them that we can only pity both of them. It seems to me that we see in
them something of the whole general problem of humanity suffering from forces
beyond its control, forces which lie inside us as well as outside us and which
make us fearful when we recognize them. Marthas fear, then, is exactly the right
note for the terminal effect of this highly indeterminate ending.
Richard E. Amacher, Edward Albee, 1982
ON THE IMAGINARY CHILD
When George and Martha destroy that child they destroy whatever illusions
they have created in reaction to a reality that has been responsible for the loneliness
they feel. And the reality they try to keep away, by conjuring up a fantasy
child, is actually the reality of mans predicament. That is, man- in this very complex
and bureaucratic world whose sheer organization is dehumanizing- feels an
overwhelming sense of aloneness and separation. His inability to deal effectively
with this predicament has left him filled with despair and boredom, for he nolonger has the joy of
individual creativity, only dependency on an outside power.
And when he can no longer create, he begins to destroy, because either activity
lifts him out of his insignificance. George and Martha feel this dislocation, almost
abandonment, brought on by our modern world- only more so because their marriage
is sterile. Consequently, in order to overcome their predicament, they have
resorted to the illusion that they are not alone; they have a child who loves them.
Michael Rutenberg, Edward Albee:
Playwright in Protest, 1969
ON NICK AND HONEY
Nick and Honey are just starting out and have something of the hopes and energies

that George and Martha had when they first came together; but where
George failed, Nick might well succeed. He is willful in a petty way, knows exactly
what he wants, and is callous enough to reach out and grab it. His plans are
clear and realizable. He is much more practical and less idealistic than George,
but lacks Georges potential to adjust to what the world calls failure. Georges failure
is incomprehensible to Nick: would anyone, in his right mind, turn down a
high administrative post simply to indulge a passion to write the great American
novel? The irony is that Nick wants what George had in his grasp and turned
down. In this context Nicks designs seem downright petty, while Georges
worldly failure takes on heroic colors... [Nick] is absolutely callous to [Honeys]
emotional needs, bent on humoring her in order to get what he wants. His relationship with
Honey is an excellent barometer of his relationship with the rest of the
world. He will very likely get everything he wants; but the world will hold his
success against him, for his ambition is utterly transparent. George and Martha
have understood this and are contemptuous of him, Honey suspects it but cannot
bring herself to face the truth.
Anne Paolucci, From Tension to Tonic, 1972

EDWARD ALBEE

The Art of Theater No. 4

Interviewed by William Flanagan
Issue 39, Fall 1966

INTERVIEWER
Incidentally, when did the title Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? occur to you?
ALBEE
There was a saloonits changed its name nowon Tenth Street, between
Greenwich Avenue and Waverly Place . . . and they had a big mirror on the
downstairs bar in this saloon where people used to scrawl graffiti. At one point back
in about 1953 . . . 1954 I think it waslong before any of us started doing much of
anythingI was in there having a beer one night, and I saw Whos Afraid of
Virginia Woolf? scrawled in soap, I suppose, on this mirror. When I started to
write the play it cropped up in my mind again. And of course, whos afraid of
Virginia Woolf means whos afraid of the big bad wolf . . . whos afraid of living life
without false illusions. And it did strike me as being a rather typical university
intellectual joke.
Download a PDF of the full interview
The English Theatre Frankfurt
Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
14

5.1.2 Edward Albee Interview

"Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?"
June 2, 2005
New York City
What was it like for you growing up in and around New York City as a kid?
I got thrown out of a lot of schools, yeah, bec ause I didn't want to be there. I didn't want
to be home either. I didn't want to be anywhere I was. But, I managed to get an education
before I got thrown out, in the stuff that interested me. Teachers seemed to sense that, in
some terribly unformed way, there might be something going on in the mind there that
should be encouraged. So, they would encourage me towards the things that interested
me. And, that was nice. So, I'd learn something at one school, get thrown out, go to
another and learn some more.
Were there teachers who influenced you? Who were important to you?
Edward Albee: Oh sure.
There were some teachers who were very, ve ry helpful and, as I say, sensed that maybe I
had a mind worth cultivating, and pointed me in the right direction to a lot of things. I
can't be specific about it, but I know that was going on. These are all private schools, not
public schools in the bowels of the city. These were private schools, a lot of wealthy kids
there. But, the teachers were paid fairly well, and they were better educated than their
students -- which is not necessarily true in many of our public school systems now -- and
some bright people. They had small classes -- seven or eight kids in a class -- and they
could spend time finding out who the kids were. I'm very, very grateful that, even though I
didn't get along with my adoptive parents, they did offer me an extraordinarily good
education.
[ Watch ] [ Listen ]

You say you started writing poetry at eight or nine.

Edward Albee: Yeah. I'd already started drawing before then.
What do you think motivated you to do that?

The English Theatre Frankfurt

Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
15
Edward Albee: Probably because I thought I was a painter, and I thought I was a writer.
You left college early, didn't you?
Edward Albee: Yes, I did. It was a mutual agreement.
I was not going to many of the courses I was supposed to in my freshman and

sophomore year. I was going to a lot of interesting courses the seniors were taking,
getting a good education on a graduating level, and of course, being marked absent and
failing my required courses. They didn't like that. And, they gave me a choice: go to the
courses I was supposed to, or leave. So I left. I was the one being educated; I thought I
should have some say as to the nature of my education. Foolish notion.
You also left home for good after that, didn't you?
Edward Albee: Yes, I did. I tried first when I was 13, because one of my grandmothers had given me
little Christmas presents, and I had a few hundred dollars. So I went into New York with my little
suitcase and tried to get on an ocean liner -- Cunard, or whatever the line was -- and discovered that
I didn't have enough money. Also, I didn't have any identification or anything, and they weren't going to
let me on board the ship.
Where did you want to go?
Edward Albee: Anywhere. London or Paris, probably Paris. But that didn't work out. So I waited until
we were so completely fed up with each other there was nothing for it.
How would you describe yourself as a kid?
Edward Albee: Forming myself, I suppose.
I never felt comfortable with the adoptive pare nts. I don't think they knew how to be
parents. I probably didn't know how to be a son, either. And, I stayed pretty much to
myself. I had a fairly active inner life. I certainly didn't relate to much of anything they
related to. They sent me away to school when I was nine, ten years old, not to have me
around. So, that was fine. It was all right. I took care of myself.

The English Theatre Frankfurt

Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
16

Did you like school?

Edward Albee: Yes, I liked school, only when I
was doing the stuff that I wanted to do. I was
always very, very good at the classes that
interested me and very bad at the ones that didn't.
I think I knew very, very young -- or at least had
some inkling of -- the direction that my life was
going to take. I was always interested in the arts. I
started painting and drawing when I was eight
years old and writing poetry when I was nine or
10. I wanted to be a composer after I discovered
Bach when I was 12 and a half, but that didn't
work out. He was too good!