This weekend we saw the Steppenwolf production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” First the performances were outstanding and the play interesting to watch on stage versus the movie. It is said that the play lost the Pulitzer Prize for Drama because of its language and sexual theme. Apparently, the word “screw” was too much for the Pulitzer committee. Certainly if the language in the play was updated, the arguments between two such highly verbal drunks, would contain more profanity. Likewise one would hope that being a childless couple today would not have to be hidden and the idea that such a couple unable to have children would need to make up a fictitious son is just laughable. Instead, they would go to china. I remember when I saw the movie in the 60s, thinking the final act was dramatic, but it didn't really ring true. Perhaps the couple who served as model for the play really had such a fiction in their lives, but it seemed silly to me then and still does today. On the other hand, as a person who taught at several universities, the first and second acts are no doubt happening at faculty parties still. In the end, the play asks the question, who is afraid to live their life free of illusions, and Martha says "she is." It seems sad to me that people feel they have to live their lives in illusion. Perhaps we all need fewer illusions.
