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May 11, 2007

Casey rated it:

This play makes me squirm with discomfort every time I read it. My mother raised me to be so conscious of manners that I'm practically Southern.

Even though George and Martha are just horrible, I can't help cackle at some of the insults they sling. When Martha says that George doesn't have "the stuff," my English Major heart is made happy. It's a totally perfect slam.

And who could not admire Albee's daring in using the term "monkey nipples"?

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Jun 28, 2007

Laura rated it:

This is, in my opinion, the best play ever written in the 20th century. There's also a great story about how this was the first drama rejected by the Pulitzer Prize committee for "obscenity" (you may have a hard time finding the obscenity in it, though, since it's from 1962). It's basically about two married couples who hang out in the wee hours of the morning following a party on a college campus in New England, but the interesting part is the way one couple tries to screw with the ot More...

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Jan 24, 2008

Phoebe rated it:

I had been wanting to read a play for a long time now, and this was definitely a good choice. Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf by Edward Albee is about a dysfunctional couple, their relationship, and their interactions with another couple. Not only is the dialogue in this play exceptional, but the play itself is also very funny. I found myself laughing out loud more then once. Although the plot is rather simple, this play has many interesting insights to human emotions and relationships. I recomm More...

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Aug 28, 2007

Beth rated it:

The central theme of this play is living without pretense. It involves 4 characters (and you will hate each of them) who berate each other through three acts. People have always raved to me about it, but I must admit that I can't understand why - rather than being emotionally jarred and on-edge, I felt bored and irritated. Every character is so villianized that there is no "heart" to the play, not a single character one can relate to. It's an interesting piece of literature, but it More...

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Oct 31, 2011

David rated it:

Edward Albee's play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" is about an older married couple of college professor's who are hosting a dinner with a younger married couple who are new to their area. The entire play is set over the course of this one evening. The dialogue in this play is absolutely stunning and fierce. George and Martha, the older couple, are not the happiest married couple in the world. Their back and forth banter throughout the course of the evening makes this very apparent u More...

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Aug 19, 2011

Julia rated it:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play about the marriage of George, a man in the History Department at a New England university, and Martha, the daughter of the university president. The play comes in a variety of layers from the start's polite pretenses until the ultimately stripped down truth in the final act. Act One: Fun and Games opens with George and Martha bickering, displaying a clear caring for each other but revealing cracks that have formed in their relationship. When Nick and his More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Nicole added it

This book made me curious. It seems to me like I know so many Georges and Marthas. However, the Marthas are so much easier to make out in the crowd. The women who yearn for excitement and attention. They're very easy to resent, fun to blame, fine to befriend, but painful to be jealous of these dames. How they can grab a man's attention and yet be so damaged. Only,every so often, is it easy to blame the man. George is highly intelligent and highly imaginative, and is he as damaged as Martha? Or d More...

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Mar 15, 2011

Ted W rated it:

I'm admittedly a little biased as I played Nick in a production of this, but Edward Albee is one of the truly great playwrights of the 20th century and this is one of his masterpieces. This unflinching look at living life without illusion is embodied in three acts that progress almost in real time through the course of an unforgettable evening of "fun and games." In fact, it is one of the most important evenings in these four characters' lives for reasons which I won't spoil here...
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Feb 02, 2011

Jeffrey rated it:

George and Martha return home after a party and Martha informs him that they are having guests over for an after-party. Nick and Honey arrive, who are much younger and all together different than George and Martha, and the party starts with idle conversation. It is clear from the beginning that George and Martha have some unresolved issues that George constantly brings up laced under witty dialog and stories. This is a strong character piece which is why it worked so well as a cinematic medium; More...

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Oct 18, 2009

Anna rated it:

I found a yellowing copy of this book at a thrift store for 20 cents and, given the price, thought that I had nothing lose in buying it. I had tried to read it in 7th grade when I was going through a little play phase but hated it then. I am so glad that I gave it a second chance.
The book is typical of those fancy shmancy intellectual plays that usually take place in the course of a day or two and nothing really happens on the surface, but there's a lot of "big ideas" underneath More...

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Jun 28, 2009

Trevor rated it:

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Jun 21, 2009

shannon rated it:

Albee’s critically acclaimed play is well worth 90 minutes of your reading time. It is humorous but not light-hearted; situated in a simple setting with complex characters. Albee’s characters explore the topics of marriage, trust and hurtfulness. He asks us to consider how much stress and emotional pain a relationship can endure before it snaps.

Set in a nondescript living room in a nondescript college town, the characters in and of themselves are unremarkable but three-dimensional. In More...

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Sep 13, 2009

Naomi rated it:

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Dec 12, 2011

jennifer rated it:

Middle-aged couple George and Martha invite young Nick and Honey to their home for an after-party at two a.m. The younger couple have just moved and Nick has taken a post at the small New England college that Martha's father has run for decades. George is also a teacher there, in a position he has maintained for years rather than moving up as both he and his wife expected. The years of disappointment have created a woman who screeches rage at her husband and a man who dissects others to find the More...

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Oct 14, 2010

Jadyn rated it:

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Nov 25, 2008

Ryan rated it:

I always assumed I wouldn't like this play. Every dramatic piece I had to read in High School swelled and gushed with overly dramatic emotions and actions and jazzhands and what have you. Shit, even Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June was something I couldn't get into. I would, basically, come out of reading with the thoughts, "Nobody acts like this! I certainly wouldn't behave like this under such 'psychological' strain! I don't care if it's only trying to reveal some blah blah blah blah More...

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Dec 01, 2010

Laura rated it:

I had to read this play for my A Level English Literature class, but we were made to watch the film first. We honestly spent the entire time glancing at each other nervously because it was so intense and awkward - not because the acting was bad, but, as you learn once you read the play, the acting was simply too good. This is a very, very intense play. It holds no punches, it doesn't coat anything with sugary sweetness. Martha and George are out for blood and they don't care who gets in their wa More...

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Jun 13, 2010

Lizzie rated it:

I've had this copy since high school, but I've never read the whole thing before now. I think I'd read the first act, and seen the start of the movie, and I knew about the ending, but the pieces weren't properly pieced before this read.

So this was a good choice, very good choice. First act is great, second act is better. (Third act's ok.) Right in the middle, this turns so scary. Oh it's scary. The dark threat in a really good play, oh that's so good. When the "Violence! Vi More...

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Jun 18, 2008

Amanda-rdg3320 rated it:

This book was so horrible. I know that it might be classic literature but I had to struggle to get through it. The whole book takes place in the same room in the same house over the time of one evening. It's two couples who fight all the time and they have an imaginary son and all they do is fight. The movie was worse! So much fighting

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Jenni rated it:

I read this during the summer because it happened to be on a bookshelf at my aunts cottage, and I feel a strange and small obligation to read/watch/work/volunteer with plays and theatre. Maybe there's a chip in my brain, I don't know, only time will tell.

SO YEA- I did not understand this play, it was over my head (which doesn't say much, trust me). Its about this dis-functional 1950s couple and the insane goings on when they invite young newly weds over around 2AM as a post-party get-together. More...

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Nov 08, 2009

Adam rated it:

I read this in a single day! Read the first half on a 90 minute train commute, and the second half on the ride back. I can honestly say that this play made me feel unlike anything else I've ever read—it was uniquely disturbing. The setting is similar to that of Sartre's “No Exit”-- a small group of people creating hell for one another. It's deeply psychological, and Albee manipulated my sense of reason and toyed with my judgement as I shifted my alliance with each character in turn. I felt More...

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Oct 04, 2011

Nick rated it:

I liked it, but I'm not quite sure why. Very surreal, felt like a dream. Preliminary research says it's supposed to be absurdist. I would agree with that, tho I'm not really familiar with absurdism. Very odd indeed.

The dialogue is really well-written, and the pacing is pretty quick, tho it drags a bit in the middle when you're trying to figure out what's going on (i.e. before it gets incredibly absurd). Still not quite sure what to think.

There's something there about the More...

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Jun 19, 2011

Paul rated it:

I liked the dialogue and I believe I want to see the movie with taylor and burton. though definitely dated. Did people really used to drink like this? Maybe this was back when people just stayed married. I didn't understand why they just didnt get divorced, except the prof was worried about his career and martha had some secret past which didn't seem to hurt her with other ambitious teachers. I didn't get the pretend son. Was the university president grandfather and everyone else who had be More...

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Mar 18, 2011

Stephen rated it:

I have seen the film version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" many times, which follows the play very closely, with the exception of some locale changes. I am still astounded by this play, and the fact that its central mystery, no matter how many times I read it, will never be uncovered. It is a play that is simultaneously avant-garde and accessible, that cuts through the pretension that exists in most "Broadway-worthy" dramatic work that came before it, and that has come More...

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Apr 09, 2011

Lia rated it:

Back and forth, back and forth, a husband and wife bicker. They bicker about each other. They bicker about their son. They bicker about the company. Back and forth, back and forth. If you like watching verbal arguments take place for hours at a time (more than hours, in book form), then this is the play novelette for you.
SPOILER:
It wasn't so much the characters that bothered me, or why they were arguing, it was just the arguing itself. It seems this entire play is based on people pic More...

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Jul 26, 2010

Laila rated it:

Bizarre. Captivating. WTF.

While reading the play, I kept imagining myself at this "cocktail party" with George and Martha; I'm confident that there are few more awkward moments than when Martha and Nick decide to play Hump the Hostess while George reads in the living room and Honey is passed out on the cold, comforting tile of the bathroom. The play is really a series of anomolous events during this 8 hour drinking binge: from the reveal of Honey's pre-wedding "pregna More...

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Jan 26, 2009

Algernon rated it:

This is one of the great stage plays to come out of the USA, and while it provides the script for a tremendous theatrical experience, it can also baffle and horrify the reader. For reading, I suggest taking a break between each of the three acts.

Theatrically, it achieves an allegorical framework yet calls for performances that employ emotional realism. An older married couple receives a young, upwardly mobile couple for a social evening that reveals multiple levels of competitivene More...

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Mar 20, 2011

Jodi Lu rated it:

i am...i am... no, i'm not, really. V woolf kinda bugs me actually but this play is pretty good.

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Oct 07, 2011

Julia rated it:

Uma das mais devastadoras peças que já li. Também um ótimo filme de Mike Nichols.

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Apr 27, 2011

Meredith rated it:

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