"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" Edward Albee

I had seen this play performed on stage in the 80s at Oklahoma State, and I saw the film adaptation that starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis in the 90s. Both experiences were like a shot in the arm, so I decided to read the play a couple of weeks ago because I thought I needed another inoculation. I come from a family that fiercely controlled their emotions, and when I first say the play I was struck by the force of the emotions of the characters. They were doing things I could never imagine doing, playing frightening games with one another and occasionally resorting to physical violence. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that George and Martha were treating each other in ways that were so damaging, and yet it was clear from the story that they keep doing this to each other over and over again. When I first saw the play, I was in the middle of a marriage that was soon to end, and I could not imagine how two people who clearly hated their life together would stay together.

Fight or flight? After college I moved from place to place, job to job and relationship to relationship. I never lived in one place more than a year between 1981 and 1992, I worked for three different companies and I am embarrassed to say how many people I dated during that decade. I once quit a job after just 4 months because I didn't like the work. Many people have told me how brave I seem to them, because I was able to make changes in my life. I have to wonder sometimes if it was bravery or simply a lack of the ability to stick with something during the rough spots. Granted, my life never deteriorated to the level of George and Martha's, but who is to say that it isn't better to stick with something even through the very worst of it. Do people like George and Martha demonstrate courage to stay in a bad marriage and/or job, or do they stay there simply because there is comfort in the misery they share?

I read somewhere that Nick and Honey, the younger couple, are both embarrassed by and fascinated with the behavior of the older couple. I think that also describes my feeling for the play. Even while reading it, I cringed when Martha made a play for Nick and when George told Honey's story for all to hear, but I couldn't stop reading. Trying to decide what is real and what is not is part of the fascination. Both Honey and Martha have created children that don't exist, consciously or not. George is damaged by his past, but we can't figure out if the story he tells of his past is true or not. George also accuses Martha of molesting the fictional (or real) child, and I wonder how that story is connected to his past.

Elsewhere in this blog I discuss my naivete, and one aspect of that was a belief that when I started work as a college professor, my work and my work ethic would speak for itself. My idealism has suffered over the years, and I realize that political savvy is much more important than the work itself. In the academic politics of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" we don't know if George's work really had merit or if maybe he's a hack, but the point is that sometimes the results are the same in either case. I have seen many new faculty members (including myself) who are like Nick charging in knowing how things should be and ready to make changes. As it turns out, curriculum and pedagogy are some of the hardest things to change.