"Twelve times a week," answered actress Uta Hagen when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the same way, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening's end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With its razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping away of social pretense, Newsweek rightly foresaw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as "a brilliantly original work of art--an excoriating theatrical experience, surging with shocks of recognition and dramatic fire [that] will be igniting Broadway for some time to come."
author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer’s English and Stet! (the game!) • America's Copy Editor™ • he/him/his #CopyeditingProTip
Barely relatedly, I'm reminded that a friend once heard Edward Albee expressing his general approval of the film of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but noting that he "had trouble with the Martha."
@MattTramel Well, as Edward Albee said, “ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf “ is about the failure of the principles of the American Revolution.
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★★★★ Review: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Fine cast sink their teeth into Edward Albee’s bruisingly funny modern masterpiece @UstinovStudio @TheatreRBath https://t.co/QQPaO9c8DV https://t.co/yjCgLCOUsb
"Towers over the common run of contemporary plays."--The New York Times
"Albee can...be placed high among the important dramatists of the contemporary world theatre."--New York Post
"An irreplaceable experience...a crucial event in the birth of contemporary American theater!"--The Village Voice