WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
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The play works much better if you view it as what it is–a horror story. The harrowing tale of a seemingly sweet and innocent young couple who venture to an older couple’s house for a pleasant evening and leave with their illusions of a beautiful, peaceful world shattered beyond repair, Albee’s 1962 play has more in common with the works of camp-shock auteurs like Roger Corman and Arch Oboler than those of Eugene O’Neill, with whom Albee has often been compared. What elevates the play above its stock horror-film setup is the metaphysical level Albee suggests. His monsters are not terrifying mythical beasts but the illusions his characters create to protect themselves from an even more monstrous reality.
The older couple, the bickering George and Martha, have invented an imaginary son to block out the fact that they are incapable of having children. In creating a fictional child, George and Martha begin a destructive cycle of role playing that prevents them from expressing any genuine compassion toward each other. George and Martha’s exchanges amount to little more than insult and ridicule. They certainly don’t acknowledge their grim plight, in which the impotent professor George delves further into his history books and Martha lunges out for any sort of attention and drowns herself in drink.
