"You make me puke". This is not even the most scathing put-down Martha issues to her husband, George, in playwright Edward Albee's coruscating study of marital discord, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
“I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops” and “I swear, if you existed, I’d divorce you,” are two other memorable moans so cutting that there’s a dark humour (and certainly an intellectual battle) in the couple’s jousting.
But just when it seems Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? might be wallowing rather voyeuristically in the ruins of a marriage, Martha shrieks: "We cry, and we take our tears, and we put 'em in the ice box, in the goddamn ice trays until they're all frozen and then … we put them in our drinks."
As a heartbreaking portrait of a destructive relationship doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over, it is perfect.
And as the theatre world mourns the loss of brilliant American playwright Albee, who died on Friday, it is likely to go down as a key line in a standout 20th-century work.
I last saw this era- and genre- defining play, which Albee wrote in 1962, in 2007 at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England. Martha was played by enduring British stage and television actress Barbara Marten. More famously, Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for her depiction in Mike Nichols’ 1966 film, while Kathleen Turner was nominated for a Tony Award for her Broadway performance in 2005.
But for all the brilliant actresses who have taken on the role, the strident, vulgar Martha inhabits them rather than the other way round. Albee’s truly amazing feat is to make what could be a gruelling, even unpleasant, experience visceral and rather surreal. Enjoyable, even.
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is, of course, his key work – but may not even be his best.
A Delicate Balance, his 1966 play in which frightened neighbours Harry and Edna demand sanctuary with their wealthy friends, Agnes and Tobias, won him the Pulitzer Prize. It's another domestic drama packed with razor-sharp lines, but more restrained and poetic.
Once again, there is late-night drinking and a sense of menace – but where Albee makes the audience wait for the twist in Virginia Woolf, this time there is immediate intrigue to the set-up. We never find out exactly why the neighbours feel the need to leave their home, beyond some kind of unspecified dread. It has been read as a treatise on 1960s fears of nuclear armageddon, although these days directors tend to lean towards a more general exploration of middle-class boredom.
Naturally, since Albee’s death there have been plenty of well-deserved notices citing the influence of these plays on not only modern theatre, but storytelling in general.
Up In The Air actress Anna Kendrick perhaps put it best when she said that seeing one of his plays "made me fall in love with theatre ... Albee is a legend, genius, treasure". He has had that effect on generations of actors whose very rites of passage have included getting their teeth into one of his characters.
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? famously didn't win a Pulitzer because the judges felt that it was too profane and depressing. But it was precisely these elements that made the 1966 film so shocking and groundbreaking.
Modern audiences are used to shows such as Breaking Bad, which explore the unravelling of a marriage. But in 1966, married couples had never been depicted in this way on screen, even if they were, of course, behaving in despicable ways behind closed doors. So Albee's maxim that "a play, at its very best, is an act of aggression against the status quo" has inspired innumerable writers of drama.
Ironically, the “status quo” quote came at a time when Albee himself was finding that being aggressive rather than populist didn’t really fly on Broadway.
The absurdist Seascape (featuring two talking lizards) was rewarded with the Pulitzer in 1975, but The Lady From Dubuque and angry satire The Man Who Had Three Arms flopped – partly because chronicling the collapse of the American dream wasn't really in step with the attitudes of the early 1980s, and partly because Albee was battling with alcoholism.
His return to prominence with Three Tall Women (1991) and The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia (2002) proved his enduring capability for greatness, both in terms of his commitment to the surreal (The Goat features a man falling in love with the titular animal) and his sharp eye for the span and story of a human life.
But though he didn't always like it – he said the success of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? "hung about my neck like a shining medal of some sort, really nice but a trifle onerous," – his most famous work has a lesson for us all.
When asked if it had a message, he once said: “Probably. I hope there are a bunch of them. Participate in your own life – fully. Don’t sink back into that which is easy and safe.
“You’re alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realising you hadn’t lived it?”
Edward Albee certainly lived his.
artslife@thenational.ae
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He became the first Emirati to climb Mount Everest in 2011, from the south section in Nepal
He ascended Mount Everest the next year from the more treacherous north Tibetan side
By 2015, he had completed the Explorers Grand Slam
Last year, he conquered K2, the world’s second-highest mountain located on the Pakistan-Chinese border
He carries dried camel meat, dried dates and a wheat mixture for the final summit push
His new goal is to climb 14 peaks that are more than 8,000 metres above sea level
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Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
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Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022
First match: November 20
Final 16 round: December 3 to 6
Quarter-finals: December 9 and 10
Semi-finals: December 13 and 14
Final: December 18
Abu Dhabi GP Saturday schedule
12.30pm GP3 race (18 laps)
2pm Formula One final practice
5pm Formula One qualifying
6.40pm Formula 2 race (31 laps)
Abramovich London
A Kensington Palace Gardens house with 15 bedrooms is valued at more than £150 million.
A three-storey penthouse at Chelsea Waterfront bought for £22 million.
Steel company Evraz drops more than 10 per cent in trading after UK officials said it was potentially supplying the Russian military.
Sale of Chelsea Football Club is now impossible.
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Almouneer
Started: 2017
Founders: Dr Noha Khater and Rania Kadry
Based: Egypt
Number of staff: 120
Investment: Bootstrapped, with support from Insead and Egyptian government, seed round of
$3.6 million led by Global Ventures
Company profile
Company name: Outsized
Started: 2016
Founders: Azeem Zainulbhai, Niclas Thelander, Anurag Bhalla and Johann van Niekerk
Based: India, South Africa, South-East Asia, Mena
Sector: Recruitment
Investment raised: $1 million
Current staff count: 40
Investors: Seed and angel investors
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kinetic 7
Started: 2018
Founder: Rick Parish
Based: Abu Dhabi, UAE
Industry: Clean cooking
Funding: $10 million
Investors: Self-funded
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
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Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km
Soldier F
“I was in complete disgust at the fact that only one person was to be charged for Bloody Sunday.
“Somebody later said to me, 'you just watch - they'll drop the charge against him'. And sure enough, the charges against Soldier F would go on to be dropped.
“It's pretty hard to think that 50 years on, the State is still covering up for what happened on Bloody Sunday.”
Jimmy Duddy, nephew of John Johnson
World Cricket League Division 2
In Windhoek, Namibia - Top two teams qualify for the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, which starts on March 4.
UAE fixtures
Thursday, February 8 v Kenya; Friday, February 9 v Canada; Sunday, February 11 v Nepal; Monday, February 12 v Oman; Wednesday, February 14 v Namibia; Thursday, February 15 final
Napoleon
Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim
Rating: 2/5
Results
Catchweight 60kg: Mohammed Al Katheeri (UAE) beat Mostafa El Hamy (EGY) TKO round 3
Light Heavyweight: Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) no contest Kevin Oumar (COM) Unintentional knee by Oumer
Catchweight 73kg: Yazid Chouchane (ALG) beat Ahmad Al Boussairy (KUW) Unanimous decision
Featherweight: Faris Khaleel Asha (JOR) beat Yousef Al Housani (UAE) TKO in round 2 through foot injury
Welterweight: Omar Hussein (JOR) beat Yassin Najid (MAR); Split decision
Middleweight: Yousri Belgaroui (TUN) beat Sallah Eddine Dekhissi (MAR); Round-1 TKO
Lightweight: Abdullah Mohammed Ali Musalim (UAE) beat Medhat Hussein (EGY); Triangle choke submission
Welterweight: Abdulla Al Bousheiri (KUW) beat Sofiane Oudina (ALG); Triangle choke Round-1
Lightweight: Mohammad Yahya (UAE) beat Saleem Al Bakri (JOR); Unanimous decision
Bantamweight: Ali Taleb (IRQ) beat Nawras Abzakh (JOR); TKO round-2
Catchweight 63kg: Rany Saadeh (PAL) beat Abdel Ali Hariri (MAR); Unanimous decision
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SmartCrowd
Started: 2018
Founder: Siddiq Farid and Musfique Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech / PropTech
Initial investment: $650,000
Current number of staff: 35
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Various institutional investors and notable angel investors (500 MENA, Shurooq, Mada, Seedstar, Tricap)
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 4 (Suarez 27', Vidal 32', Dembele 35', Messi 78')
Sevilla 0
Red cards: Ronald Araujo, Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona)
TWISTERS
Director:+Lee+Isaac+Chung
Starring:+Glen+Powell,+Daisy+Edgar-Jones,+Anthony+Ramos
Rating:+2.5/5
Company Profile
Name: Takestep
Started: March 2018
Founders: Mohamed Khashaba, Mohamed Abdallah, Mohamed Adel Wafiq and Ayman Taha
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: health technology
Employees: 11 full time and 22 part time
Investment stage: pre-Series A
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight, Wednesday, BeIN Sports
Other key dates
-
Finals draw: December 2
-
Finals (including semi-finals and third-placed game): June 5–9, 2019
-
Euro 2020 play-off draw: November 22, 2019
-
Euro 2020 play-offs: March 26–31, 2020
COMPANY PROFILE
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Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
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Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
The specs: 2017 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali
Price, base / as tested Dh207,846 / Dh220,000
Engine 6.2L V8
Transmission Eight-speed automatic
Power 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque 624Nm @ 4,100rpm
Fuel economy, combined 13.5L / 100km
Traits of Chinese zodiac animals
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Rat:witty, creative, charming
Ox:diligent, perseverent, conservative
Rabbit:gracious, considerate, sensitive
Dragon:prosperous, brave, rash
Snake:calm, thoughtful, stubborn
Horse:faithful, energetic, carefree
Sheep:easy-going, peacemaker, curious
Monkey:family-orientated, clever, playful
Rooster:honest, confident, pompous
Dog:loyal, kind, perfectionist
Boar:loving, tolerant, indulgent
No Windmills in Basra
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Pages: 180
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
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On sale: November/December
Price: From Dh205,000 (estimate)
Herc's Adventures
Developer: Big Ape Productions
Publisher: LucasArts
Console: PlayStation 1 & 5, Sega Saturn
Rating: 4/5