I am George. . . I am. . .

This weekend when I should have studied for my physics final, I read Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. I’m not acquainted with the writer the play’s title calls upon, but I’m told it’s a pun on living life without illusions, which is what the play is about. Or so I’m told. Irony aside, I’m going to break down the opening scene of the play, comparing the text and the 1966 film adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor. The very first words of the play, before any dialogue is spoken, sets the scene with, “Set in darkness”. I didn’t catch that line the first time I read it, which is surprising because it’s not exactly the most subtle way to introduce a foreboding character element. I do not think it’s supposed to be subtle, either. Because it’s so blunt, it’s the playwrights way of saying, “Hey - in this play, there will be characters interacting with each other, but no one will really SEE each other”. George and Martha’s marriage is introduced to us in this very way. The first shot of the movie is their silhouettes contrasted against the hallway. The only source of light is a shoddy lamp that hangs on the ceiling. Moths swirl around it. Moths are usually agents of decay. They eat through fabric, and huddle around lights. There’s a certain chaos seen in the moths fighting over their own share of the light. This image of wanting “spotlight” is reminiscent of the dinner party between the four main characters. Instead of hearing Martha’s laughter like the book describes, the two enter the room dead silent, looking exhausted. Martha’s burnt out cigarette gives a feeling that these two are stale creatures returning to their abode that appears to be, as Martha comments, a dump. As seen in the societal expectations read in Doll’s House, the home was supposed to be a peaceful sphere protected from the corruption of the outside world. Instead of masking the true condition with decoration, the house is a brutal representation of the status of Martha and George’s marriage. Neither of them is willing to fix it up, and the pressures from society aren’t enough to motivate them to pick up the pieces. The Betty Davis allusion, “What a dump”, the first few pages carries on about fuels the initial interaction between George and Martha. She repeatedly calls George a “cluck”. This may be a stretch, but in the film version, their conversation trails from the living room into the kitchen. While she calls him a cluck and verbally abuses a visibly exhausted George for an answer, she pulls out leftovers from the refrigerator and begins to eat a chicken leg. This is another visual metaphor of Martha feeding on George. The fact that they’re eating leftovers also shows how untraditional the marriage is, and the stale-looking food shows how void the house is of replenishing items. Going only 3 pages into the play, it’s apparent how dried up their marriage is, and the relationship these two characters have.