Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shocked audiences and critics alike with its assault on decorum. At base though, the play is simply a love story: an examination of a long-wedded life, filled with the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and pain that accompany the passing of many years together.

While the ethos of the play is tragicomic, it is the anachronistic, melodramatic secret object—the nonexistent "son"—that upends the audience’s sense of theatrical normalcy. The mean and vulgar bile spewed among the characters hides these elements, making it feel like something entirely "new."

As Michael Y. Bennett reveals, the play is the same emperor, just wearing new clothes. In short, it is straight out of the grand tradition of living room drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, Glaspell, Hellmann, O’Neill, Wilder, Miller, Williams, and Albee.

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Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shocked audiences and critics alike with its assault on decorum. At base though, the play is simply a love story: an examination of a long-wedded life, filled with the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and pain that accompany the passing of many years together.

While the ethos of the play is tragicomic, it is the anachronistic, melodramatic secret object—the nonexistent "son"—that upends the audience’s sense of theatrical normalcy. The mean and vulgar bile spewed among the characters hides these elements, making it feel like something entirely "new."

As Michael Y. Bennett reveals, the play is the same emperor, just wearing new clothes. In short, it is straight out of the grand tradition of living room drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, Glaspell, Hellmann, O’Neill, Wilder, Miller, Williams, and Albee.

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Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

by Michael Y. Bennett
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

by Michael Y. Bennett

eBook

$14.99 

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Overview

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shocked audiences and critics alike with its assault on decorum. At base though, the play is simply a love story: an examination of a long-wedded life, filled with the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and pain that accompany the passing of many years together.

While the ethos of the play is tragicomic, it is the anachronistic, melodramatic secret object—the nonexistent "son"—that upends the audience’s sense of theatrical normalcy. The mean and vulgar bile spewed among the characters hides these elements, making it feel like something entirely "new."

As Michael Y. Bennett reveals, the play is the same emperor, just wearing new clothes. In short, it is straight out of the grand tradition of living room drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, Glaspell, Hellmann, O’Neill, Wilder, Miller, Williams, and Albee.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781351599528
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 07/11/2018
Series: The Fourth Wall
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 66
File size: 203 KB

About the Author

Michael Y. Bennett is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1: The Play’s Contexts

CHAPTER 2: The Play in Retrospect: Seeing the "New" as "Old"

CHAPTER 3: The Play and Players

CHAPTER 4: The Play’s Legacy

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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