Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living… in a small college town in New England with his usually drunk wife Martha. George and Martha attend all the parties, talk to all the right people, read all the right books, and are miserable for it. Their life now consists of bickering and nagging at each other over small quibbles and more serious mistakes alike.
Profession… Associate Professor of history at New Carthage University. His wife Martha is the daughter of the University’s President, so George has always had the opportunity to climb the ranks. But George has never quite risen to the top, a fault for which Martha constantly incriminates him.
Interests… playing “games” with Martha. Their mysterious and hard-lived past has brought them to a psychological state of constant irony and their strange defense mechanism of playing “games” in order to deal with their issues. These games distill down to torturous psychological tests in which George and Martha begin sadistically torturing each other. Their favorite games are “Humiliate the Host,” “Get the Guests,” and “Hump the Hostess,” which might sound fun, if not full of horror, but in reality these are not so much games as an all out psychological war between George and Martha. Tonight, they are playing their games with two young and assuming houseguests, the recently married Nick and Honey.
Relationship Status… in a toxic marriage. Martha and George often claim to love each other, but what they show is actually disgust and rivalry. Their love for one another has become buried beneath alcohol and routine criticism.
Challenge… defeating Martha. George takes far more criticism from Martha than she does from him. George’s method of attack is much more subtle. If he wants to show Martha how horrible she truly is, he’s going to have to use everything at his disposal, including their unassuming guests, Nick and Honey.
Personality… meek, tortured, but ready to sling back the insults under the guise of polite suggestions. He doesn’t usually fight back against her crude remarks, instead absorbing them like a fat sponge, ready to burst.
Get to Know him in...
-
Mike Nichols? film from Edward Albee's play brought new themes to the film industry. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have never been more brilliant together as they portray an experienced married couple who love each other yet verbally attack one another when they see how boring their na
-
“Twelve times a week,” answered Uta Hagen, when asked how often she’d like to play Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like her, 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 the play’s 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.”
