Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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Summary: Fantabulous!!!!!!!!
Review: Never before have I enjoyed a book so much. The absolute maliciousness with which George and Martha come at each other is simply delightful. Their quarrels can produce nothing but laughs as you watch them try to out-wit one another. The presence of Nick and Honey and their involvement in the little games that are being played seems absolutely absurd and one can't help but hope that the battles don't stop. Quite an ending and very impressively written.

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Summary: A sure thriller
Review: The best play I have read. Albee defines literary genius by placing his characters in a surreal atmosphere of illusory events. The scene is environmentally advanced. It is full of dancing verbs and adjectives that really define Albee's style. He's very similar to Al B. Sure. I give this play a sure 5

Rating:
Summary: its hilarious
Review: The play opens with a married couple, george and martha, who have just returned from a party at her fathers house, who happens to be the head of the college at which george is a professor. The two have invited the recently hired nick, and his wife honey, to join them at their house after the party. George and Martha have what i can only describe as a love-hate relationship. They constantly bicker and argue, but love each other all the more for it. Nick and Honey, caught in the middle of this game, unwittingly play a major role in it. The "game" is a major motif in the book. All of the characters have a personality varying between playfulness and anger, but they always seem to know that it is a game. George is developed more thoroughly than any of the other characters. His cynical attitude and sarcastic humor bring him always into the middle of the conflict. George controls the vast majority of the final act and is succesful in bringing the timid Nick out of his shell. George uses his ability to control people, to force Nick to sleep with Martha, which only furthers their "game". The brute language and sexually explicit scenes allow this book to keep the reader interested and connected with the characters. Though some of the book does seem harsh, it is all within context of the situations described. i absoluetly loved this play. I read it cover to cover in one night and was thoroughly inpresseed with Albee's understanding of the human psyche.

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Summary: Incredible play, the best ever
Review: THis is easily the greatest work of fiction I've ever read in my life. I first seen the movie, then bought the book, and was amazed at how much better it is to play it in your head. The characters are perfectly drawn, the revelations all coming at the right moments, the monologues perfect for any wannabe actor to try. This is definite proof that Albee is among the greatest geniuses in the literary realm. It is beyond marvelous. Just breathtakingly well done

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Summary: Some of the best dramas on man/woman misunderstanding
Review: This is the stuff real drama is made:the human soul.And we see four torn, ravaged soul caught in a maelstrom of bitter emotions caused by frustration,unrequited love,anger and guilt feelings. Martha can't understand George's despair, that his apathy is generated by his ultimate failure to find a source of hope and meaning in his life; George can't understand the frustration of Martha, her own feeling of failure being incapable to connect whit him, to save him from his passive/aggressive depression; nor can Nick and Honey comprehend them, and indeed themselves. The sadistic rituals of games are like pagan sacrifices, made by the characters to the god of modern angst to know the truth on themselves. As the sad truth is revealed, they emerge maybe purified, surely wiser.This drama is like an interpretation of Eliot's Wasteland . The spirit,expecially in the final scenes,is very similar.

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Summary: This is the worst.
Review: This is the worst,boring book I've ever read. I don't like it at all... and the title doesn't fit to the book. I hate this book.

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Summary: Sad Story, Witty Dialogue
Review: This play explores the loneliness and desperation of a couple that, like it or not, may typify marriage in our society (well...an extreme example). Although the outcome of the book is heartbreaking, it is honest. In addition to the psycological and sociological aspects of the drama, readers will also appreciate the witty dialogue of the characters. For an intriguing dramatic experience, buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Plays Ever Written
Review: This play is excellent! Edward Albee is a literary genius and deserves all of the praise for this piece of literature he can get. I've read four of his plays (The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance, The American Dream and this one) and loved them all . Also, see the movie. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis are absolutely chilling.

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Summary: George and Martha...sad, sad, sad...
Review: This play is not for the faint of heart or for those who think it's about Virgina Woolf. I won't go into a summary of the play as many reviewers have already done. However, I will say this is definitely one of the best plays I have ever read (I read it cover to cover in under 2 hours). George and Martha remind me very much of my own parents with the exception of the drinking and the fact I'm not imaginary. It was a bit hurtful to read this play and find such a comparison to the people I love but it was refreshing. Below all the humilations and torture George and Martha place on each other through there 'games' they love each other and ultimately appear to have a healthier and happier marriage than the seemingly innocent Nick and Honey. This play is not a happy one so if your looking for a full of laughs play with happy go lucky ending look elsewhere. Who's Afriad of Virginia Woolf falls along the lines of O'Neil's Long Day's Journey Into Night or Miller's Death of a Salesman and All My Sons. Have tissues handy when you read it, see it performed live if you can, or watch the Taylor & Burton film. But above all see it LIVE!

Rating:
Summary: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf
Review: This play takes place in the living room of George and Martha a(middle-aged couple)in a house on the campus of a small New England college. The play begins with George and Martha coming home from a falculty party drunk. They invite Nick and Honey over and the marriages begin to fall apart with all the arguing and confusion. Edward Albee gives a clear cut, honest picture of reality of marriage and the fears that go hand in hand with love and intimacy.Albee transforms social problems for which no solution is offered into sexual and family strife,problems for which he has a readily available solution.Albee takes questions of power,work, failure and success and privates them giving them status and value exclusively as family issues.Albee's style is beyond clever-often disturbingly immoral.The play is full of human emotions-distress,humiiiation, love and hate.The play emphasizes the men's social function at the play's end.The women's social function is to engage in reproduction and/or non- productive work.Both Honey and Martha had distorted these terms,by engaging in non-productive reproduction-that is not having children or by having a false child. The women are supposed to help husbands be successes and to remain tempting and non threatening subordinate partners in marriage.albee's women conform the stereotypical notions of women's place:that women take care of home and children while the men take care of the rest of the world. the women are seen as a sexobject, wife, cook, volunteer, semi-professional,hostess.The women are verbally abusive to the men precisely because the men do not suceed in the same stereo typical terms as do e women.The women fail to conform the sex role stereotypes only in their refusal to besilent about the already on-going failures of their men. However at the end of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf the humiliated,weak, unsuccesful man is shown to be stronger than the brutal, emasculating woman.The family problems are solved, not by investigating their ultimate source,which lies outside the home,but by regulating family relations in a highly normaive manner. George gains control over Martha by ridding the central family of all intruders and rivals to his power.In the end of the play the male child is killed because he is too tempting to his mother and imaginatively tempting in Virginia Woolf and sexually tempting in the American Dream.In conclusion George replaces the Daddy above him, subordinates the wife-child,and succesfully fights a reguard action against his own replacement by the son. This reversal is constructed by Albee's taking questions of power,work,failure or successand privatizing them, making social issues appear exclusively as family issuesand solving them as if they were family issues. Because of this the woman functions as a scapegoat. I thought that this play was great. This play captures the reader's attention and keeps it occupied guessing what will happen next until the end of the play.I would advise every one with a good sense of humor to read this play if it is possible.