Reading Order
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Reading Order
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward Albee is the most savage American play — George (a history professor) and Martha (his wife, the college president's daughter) invite a new faculty couple, Nick and Honey, to their home after a faculty party, and what follows across three hours and three acts ('Fun and Games,' 'Walpurgisnacht,' 'The Exorcism') is a night of escalating games and warfare in which the four characters are progressively stripped of their illusions. The central revelation — that George and Martha's 'son,' whom they have discussed all evening, does not exist but was an elaborate shared fiction that kept their marriage alive — is the play's structural climax. Albee (who wrote the play after seeing the title written in soap on a mirror in a Greenwich Village bar) was working directly in the tradition of Strindberg's battle of the sexes and O'Neill's family tragedy, but in the American idiom of 1962 — sexual honesty, domestic violence, and the specific social world of the American university. The play won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and has become one of the most frequently produced plays in the American repertory.
Where to start
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) — the complete play. Albee's stage directions are extensive and should be read carefully. Best Albee reading order: The Zoo Story → The American Dream → Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? → A Delicate Balance → Seascape → Three Tall Women
Complete Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Book List
- 1Buy
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee·1962·The most savage American play — George and Martha's night of games and warfare with Nick and Honey, ending with the exorcism of their imaginary son. Won the Tony Award for Best Play; the original production starred Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill; the 1966 film starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - 2Buy
Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill·1956·The companion in the tradition of the American family play organized around a night of progressive revelation — the Tyrones' terrible day and night of accusation and recognition. Long Day's Journey into Night and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are the two most devastating American plays about marriage and family: both are organized around a small group of characters confined in a space, moving through a night toward a recognition that is both terrible and clarifying - 3Buy
The Dance of Death
August Strindberg·1900·Strindberg's 1900 companion in the tradition of the play about a marriage organized around mutual warfare — Edgar and Alice in their tower on the island, playing the game of their twenty-five-year marriage. The Dance of Death is the direct theatrical precursor to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: Strindberg's Edgar and Alice and Albee's George and Martha are companion couples in the tradition of the marriage as sustained combat, and Albee knew Strindberg well - 4Buy
Miss Julie
August Strindberg·1888·The Strindbergian companion in the tradition of the battle of the sexes — the count's daughter Julie and the valet Jean on Midsummer's Eve. Miss Julie and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are companion explorations of the battle between a man and a woman in which the weapons are intelligence, sexuality, and cruelty, and in which the 'winner' of the battle is not always the one who seems to be winning at any given moment - 5Buy
The Homecoming
Harold Pinter·1965·Pinter's companion in the tradition of the play about domestic power and the violence concealed in family relationships — Teddy's return to his North London family with his wife Ruth. The Homecoming and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are companion plays about the violence of family life: both are organized around an evening of escalating confrontation, both use the presence of outsiders (Nick and Honey; Teddy) to expose the dynamics of the central relationship, and both refuse any comfortable resolution - 6Buy
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller·1949·The companion in the American theatrical tradition — Willy Loman's illusions and their consequences. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Death of a Salesman are companion investigations of the American family's illusions: Miller's Willy maintains illusions about his professional success; Albee's George and Martha maintain the ultimate illusion (a son who doesn't exist). Both plays ask what illusions do for people and what happens when they are stripped away - 7Buy
The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov·1904·Chekhov's companion in the tradition of the play about people who cannot face the reality of their situation — the Ranevskaya family's inability to save the cherry orchard. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Cherry Orchard are companion plays about illusion and its dissolution: but where Chekhov's characters endure their illusions with a kind of elegiac acceptance, Albee's characters strip each other's illusions away in a night of deliberate violence - 8Buy
A Delicate Balance
Edward Albee·1966·Albee's 1966 companion and the play that won him the Pulitzer Prize — Tobias and Agnes's household disrupted by the arrival of their best friends Harry and Edna, who have been overcome by an unspecified but paralyzing terror. A Delicate Balance is the calmer, more formal companion to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: where the earlier play is organized around combat, A Delicate Balance is organized around the quieter violence of ordinary bourgeois life
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the imaginary son in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
George and Martha's 'son' is an elaborate shared fiction — a child they invented together and have maintained as a private myth of their marriage. The son (who is about to turn twenty-one as the play begins, giving the evening a significance that the audience does not understand until the revelation) allowed George and Martha to sustain their marriage by giving them a shared object of love and aspiration that real life had not provided. When George 'kills' the son by announcing that he has died (in an accident, following the rules of the game they established — that the son cannot be discussed with outsiders, and George breaks this rule as the ultimate act of violence against Martha), he is performing an 'exorcism': removing the illusion that has kept the marriage alive in order to force Martha to face the reality of their relationship. Whether what they face at the play's end — without the son, without the game — is the possibility of authentic connection or simply the devastation of what the game's end leaves behind is the question the play's final image ('Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?' / 'I am, George. I am.') poses and refuses to answer.
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