The South Central Modern Language Association

Terror and Violence in Edward Albee: From "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" to
"Marriage Play"
Author(s): Jeane Luere
Source: South Central Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 50-58
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central Modern
Language Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3189213
Accessed: 28-11-2018 17:43 UTC

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 Terror and Violence in Edward Albee:

From Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to

Marriage Play
JEANE LUERE
University of Northern Colorado

To compel audiences to look inside themselves, contemporary British and

Continental dramatists have re-charged the literary elements of terror and
violence. Herbert Blau notes that Samuel Beckett has "brought to paralyz-
ing extremities the effects of the suppressed terror that Strindberg and Ibsen
explored."' Anthony Kubiak adds that Genet and Pinter allow terror a
"self-conscious-and overtly violent-free play."2 In Conversations With
Edward Albee, Patricia De La Fuente quotes Albee's comment on a play-
wright's purpose, "I don't think you should frighten [audiences], I think
you should terrify them."3 The change in Albee's quota of terror and
violence from that in his early work, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, to that
in his newest, Marriage Play, is a variant of the trend noted by Blau and
Kubiak.4
While Albee's earlier play, published in 1962, contained terror and oc-
casional physical attack, his newest, in world premiere at Vienna's English
Theatre, in 1987, features rampant violence but an ironic type of terror that
is difficult to perceive since it is subtly separated from violence itself.
Traditionally in literature, the element of terror appears as an overwhelm-
ing impulse of fear built up by authors in the minds of characters or
audiences prior to and during the approach of a second element, violence-
intense moral, emotional, or physical action. What is so subtle about the
terror permeating Marriage Play is that audiences do not begin sensing it
until after witnessing much violence. Though initially shocked, we even-
tually anticipate, even accept the eruptions between the play's protagonists,
Jack and Gillian. Why? Mesmerized by the violence of their relationship,
Albee's audience is drawn, trance-like, into the subconscious of the couple.
There we find two individuals, terrified-not of physical blows or verbal
assaults-but of the prospect of solitude, of living alone without the com-
pany of another soul. This subconscious terror, artfully hidden, conscious-
ly emerges only if we ask, "Why doesn't the husband, Jack, keep walking"
when he repeatedly exits what is, in effect, a revolving door. But do we ask?
Albee, the mature craftsman, seduces us with violence. It is only in the dark

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 Jeane Luere 51

shadows of our inner selv

answer-the seminal cry of
George, or Himself, "I need
Differences in Albee's struc
of Virginia Woolf? and Marri
ships on Albee's newer stag
episodes of apparently unpr
subsequent deterioration
tempt to dramatize this co
insistence that "drama is a
do not behave (Roudane 194). In an interview with Matthew C. Roudane
for Critical Essays on Edward Albee, Albee says that a playwright "directly or
indirectly . . is a kind of demonic social critic" who through drama "gives
shape to life and increases consciousness" in order to "readjust our vision
[and] to reorder our values" (195-96). In the works of his peers Beckett,
Genet, and Pinter, omnipresent issues of communication, awareness, and
identity lie close to the surface, whereas in Albee's new play their subtle
presence as adjuncts of terror and violence is easily missed.
On the surface, the focus of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Marriage
Play seems similar as once again Albee dramatizes the impasses that arise
as marriage partners communicate. In the earlier play, George and Martha
believe in marriage, and moment by moment with matchless and admirable
struggle they communicate candidly to preserve their union.6 The newer
play, with two acts, two characters and a disturbing aura akin to that of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, also presents a married couple, Jack and
Gillian, whose attitudes and behaviors, Albee may be telling us, are ubiq-
uitous in today's culture.
However, in tone and pattern, the communication of the couples is less
parallel. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the interchange of George and
Martha occurs on a plateau of hostility. Their bickering is incessant and
shows an undeviating pattern of recrimination and one-upmanship. Yet
their interchange appears successful.7 Conversely, Marriage Play's unhap-
py partners swing in uneven arcs between extremes, at times critically
introspective, at others, superficially contented. Their attempts to com-
municate are sporadic and self-defeating. Often when Jack thinks he is
sharing his feelings or intentions with Gillian, he states them on the run and
in such peremptory fashion that she refers to their living room entryway as
a turnstile where he enters, makes announcements, then exits. Gillian
methodically recollects and evaluates her mate's long-run sexual perfor-
mance while he laments its present lack of glow, its loss of meaning. "The
joy is all gone from it . . . I look into a face . . . and ask . . . Why am
I here?"8 Jack's abiding wish contains classic irony: he longs to "stand in
the snow . . . rut like a lion in the forest," yet he says "I want it to mean
something" (Act II). Notwithstanding the loss of meaning in their relation-
ship, the two occasionally swing toward intimacy by sitting side by side in

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52 South Central Review

their reclining chairs and suffer

the futility of their relationship
what Gillian facetiously calls "T
The plays are even less similar w
from verbal abuse to physical at
ment of terror. In Who's Afraid o
as George's first attack on Mart
it is a fierce rush, with a guest,
George, Martha, and Honey's hu
tions read, "George's hands are o
the struggle ends when "Nick
throws him on the floor" (138). St
which "They all move around . .
Yet the incident has not surpri
Martha, the dramatist has fully
George and Martha as cosmic ch
little back, choosing to act an
growing fears and our own swe
tha solicits Nick for a dance "clo
bodies undulate congruently"
sensitive George by indiscreetly
attempt to become an author, w
looking for a punch in the m
Despite her assaults on his self-e
scholar, George's strong sense o
their interplay. Because Albee h
ing alertly before, during, and a
from terrified apprehension as th
in their relationship.
In contrast, amid Marriage Play
changes, our emotional prepara
seems all but absent, and literary
they expect-the terror of an Oe
tion of the play. Both the sudde
unprovoked violence startle v
their reception of violence wit
riage Play's clash flashes at us t
audience with the stark fear tha
during the approach of physical
exchange, suddenly directs a bl
are numbed, unlike earlier th
through many scenes, Oedipus's
assault on Desdemona. The on
Jack's abrupt movement to ben
reading entries in her "journa

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 Jeane Luere 53

during their twenty-three-yea

present from intimacy in the
it about to deliver his blow,
to her smarting face and say
done that too often; you ha
had not known. Gillian had m
audience's eyes insufficient
physical response. If, in retr
we suspect that Jack's prese
spring from compounded
ference to his emotionless,
(Act I). Had their communica
reciprocated with more tha
and he could have released h
violence. George and Martha
and Gillian failures.
Further along in each play, Albee's disparate handling of second physical
attacks supports the conjecture that indeed this playwright has changed his
method of dramatizing violent impasses in couples' communication. In
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'s second attack--one which, like its first, ends
quickly-George grabs Martha, "pulling her hair back" (208) to "[slap] her
lightly with his free hand . . . Again . . . Again . . . Again . . .
Again . . . " (208). However, long before this episode, Albee had begun
to build terror on the stage and in the audience as the husband and wife
communicate their awareness of and disregard for marital boundaries. We
fear that Martha is asking for punishment. We had seen the attack coming
throughout previous scenes in which the husband and wife were "Vicious
children, with their oh-so-sad games" (197). Their on-going thrusts we take
as routine attempts to communicate. The partners seek meaning and
continuity within a declining world whose moral and ethical values George
holds increasingly suspect as he watches the specious antics of his and
Martha's guests, Nick and Honey. Martha has provoked George early in
the scene over whether or not Nick is actually a stud or a houseboy, and
George has said to Nick, "Look! I know the game! You don't make it in the
sack, you're a houseboy" (202). To Nick's retort, "I AM NOT A
HOUSEBOY!", George has countered, "Well, then, you must have made it
in the sack? Yes?" (202). We have heard George, always alert, vent his
hostility in acrid words that chide Martha for her sexual laxity, managing
thereby to preserve a measure of self-esteem in his own fiefdom. Unlike
Jack, George seldom stores his anger to explode later in outright physical
rage. George and Martha handle the cruel twists in their relationship wide
awake and one game at a time. The two know who they are and regularly
reinforce each other's identity with appropriate-albeit bitter-verbal par-
ries. Their rivalry while jockeying for a starting position in their perpetual
tournament makes us apprehensive, and we anticipate violence as we see

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54 South Central Review

George-in accord with Albee's cle

heavy, behaving a little manic" (20
pie-chippie-chippie, hunh?" (196
Martha "straining to keep civil" but
"between her teeth" (198). Stage dire
ugly" (199) and Martha is "a litt
George's anger rises. We hear her p
please" (206). Albee wants her "alm
in close succession, "No, George, no
clash finally comes, we have long an
can savor an appropriate measure of
Conversely, in Marriage Play's secon
protracted wrestling match carries o
II, and Albee again appears to settle
rather than opt to approach violen
tended that audiences gasp and r
phenomenon, a theatrically-staged
gaged the services of a profession
match may have spawned in Albe
comparatively less violent bout in W
staging called for George and Marth
Jack and Gillian's match begins b
relationship again collapses from
now, the two haVe subsisted on matte
memories of youth and courtship. S
Gillian has frequently recalled their
fellow-passengers' fascination wi
Though the scene prior to the un
Gillian's dilemma of whether to end
most part their attempts to commu
for answers but chronic indifferenc
me," each has asked the other repea
tarily draw close, Gillian places her
his instant overreaction stuns the
anticipation, our terror? For Jack,
raged, propels himself against Gillia
turns into a cosmic-scale marital ba
this extended scene of bitter jabbi
reign to violence as Jack and Gillian
hard kicks to the viscera with ac
filth" and "you withered woman"
and wife, indeed as human beings, J
or supine, and Albee's spectacle par
Martha's skirmish had aroused and titillated but never debilitated us.
When the prone and caterwauling couple, bodies entwined and aroused,

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 Jeane Luere 55

stop short, pull their upper

interest at each other, w
coupling? Finally a hard ja
clinch of their lower regio
prone. This raw and protra
semi-communicants in thei
unprepared audience and fo
watching this crude displa
than drawing us into its d
their seats at this point. W
and Martha's incessant verb
so inhuman as Jack and Gi
design Who's Afraid of Virgi
as a release valve forestalli
Marriage Play?
Unless we pause after the
leading up to it, we perc
flashing violent scenes bef
marriage. Viewers can beco
of members of a critical
aesthetic distance, just wha
slated to appear next and f
play involves an appreciatio
of psychological horror tha
To fathom Albee's double t
message on marriage. Watch
erred earlier in assuming th
ship fails; rather, Albee sh
Jack and Gillian may sulk a
recover and demonstrate th
of the word "divorce." And
rituals from their past to
them together is not a liv
standing of change like th
seemed to know that love r
up the illusion of their mad
pretense-though neither Ge
ment. But Jack and Gillia
terrified of love and of cha
look to the future without
in this checkmated pair's a
lies beyond divorce, a dread
why a bad marriage contin
Jack and Gillian communic
"vacuum," "void," and "no

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56 South Central Review

know that long ago their union l

love, loyalty, and self-respect, the
their self-serving interchange, accep
life with no relationship at all, a
"orchid corsages" (Act II). If reali
behind their wedding rings. Only
is quietly pacing within the securi
infidelities with "When mind a
should do it ... ," justifying to G
Her answer, that nothing preven
cherish"-is sarcastic rather than sardonic as Martha's would have been.
Jack and Gillian quickly applaud themselves for what we, looking on, m
deem specious-for their twenty-three years of carefully calculated co
munication during which they have "complemented rather than comp
sated for each other" (Act II). Yet what real identity is possible wh
self-esteem and self-respect fall in battle? Their acute fear of loneline
apparent from a terrifying inability to advance without identity as a "c
ple," inures them to humiliating physical pain and forestalls any actual s
of their world-shell. Jack can say in truth, "I regret . . . that I'm going
lose you . . . lose the light," and Gillian will softly protest, "Then why
rush it?" (Act II). Albee's new play depicts what Jack and Gillian's uncom
municated terror engenders: a strange and tragic lethargy, a pernicio
pseudo-serenity-stop gap in nature-that too frequently follows half-w
reconciliation after marital battles. Such apathy dangerously precludes
real communicative effort to resolve besetting issues, engendering cycl
violence. We must grant this playwright his due for packing his play w
insidious on-stage terror.
Furthermore, Albee's second act gives audiences our own terror-subt
and prescient--which in Pirandellian fashion we must fill in according
where our fears lead us. This terror has as a "given" the impossibility
escape. Because Jack and Gillian lack the honest, ongoing exchange
George and Martha, no choice exists for them of the kind suggested, if
actually stated, at the close of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The continu
action of Marriage Play makes audiences squirm with apprehension at
violence lurking in the pair's emotional and physical future when man
wife, by now inured to pain, sink into the lackluster comfort of each o
special chair, relieved at having rounded off one more exercise in futil
At curtain, we in the audience freeze at irony in the playwright's cra
Aristotelian return when Jack announces from his chair "I'm leaving y
and Gillian answers from hers "I know you are." The terrifying underc
rent of Marriage Play is the sense that being human entails more tha
"being." It is relationships that enlarge our existence, and the quality
those relationships defines the quality of that existence. Too often
choose to become human corpses like Jack and Gillian, who seem t
chilling objects of satire by the close of Albee's play.'0

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 Jeane Luere 57

During his long career, A

during the precious time of
that "lets people sleep their
journey through conscious
terror-filled" that experie
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? an
may be warning us: far s
immediately to ever pres
slumped in dormant and la
Much earlier in Western C
Art that assaults audiences
assault was "not primarily
ward Albee would surely w
physical violence to magnif

NOTES

Herbert Blau, Take Up the Bodies:

299.

2 Anthony Kubiak, "Disappearan

(1987): 79.
3 Patricia De La Fuente, "Edward A
Living Authors Series No. 3, repr
(Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1988
4 See Matthew C. Roudane on Ed
An Interview with Edward Albee,
J. Madison Davis (Boston: G. K. H
comments by the dramatist: "All A
cate. . . . Communication opens
tion is dangerous-it draws bloo
parenthetically within my text.
5 In line with Donn Erwin Byrne'
(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1981), I
for episodes of violence for which
provocation seems absent but may
immediately antecedent to-the o
lence" may also be relevant to t
wherein the recipient of the violen
yet in some respect is related, tho
6 Anne Paolucci, in From Tension
Illinois UP, 1972) writes that Geor
George and Martha have played b
ing agony of love" (48).
7 In Paolucci's words, "The inesca
each of the protagonists, of what
leads to "the gradual discovery
references to this source will be do
8 Edward Albee, Marriage Play (W
June-July, 1987), Act I. The play h

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58 South Central Review

are from my notes taken during six perfo

ences to the work will be cited parenthetica
9 Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia
10 In Marriage Play, Jack at one point blam
"Life fills us with such a sense of choice,
it's not true" (II). He may grasp his part i
goes . . . we come to the moment when w
we've wasted . .. our life . . . the greate
From my seat in the theatre, I perceived "th
who would rather be hit than left, and the
philosophy than live it.
11 Digby Diehl, in "Edward Albee Intervie
reports that Albee loathes "moral, intellec
in "Albee at Albright: The Playwright Pond
[Reading, PA.] 6 Nov. 1988: B 18-21. Ha
"thematic blood type"-which is honest pa
Albee's views help us understand why Geo
couple's child\myth. As Paolucci commen
unexpected relationship, a new beginning, a
61). Conversely, Albee lets us cringe at
themselves to participate in Albee's conce
of a vacuum, relies on her journal of past i
same terror, scatters his seed and philosoph
12 Oscar G. Brockett, History of the Theat

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