The film of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?

The film of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? delves into the lives of four people who meet one night for a drink in a college town, one couple older and more experienced, the other younger and new to the academic world; in truth, they meet for a night of psychodrama approaching outright psychological torture. The older couple has clearly performed this ritual many times before, and over the course of the night, while they pass through a series of stages leading form one interpersonal position to another, they cannot be said to be changed by the experience. After all, as noted, they have tortured one another like this before and will do so again. On this night, Martha may give away more secrets or take the drama in a different direction, but still the couple has done this before. The younger couple, on the other hand, experience something new which challenges their view of the accepted order and tests their view of one another. In some ways, they may represented George and Martha at an earlier stage, and the older couple may be a preview of what the younger couple will become.

From the first, it is made clear that this drama belongs to George and Martha and that Nick and Honey are observers and unwitting participants. George and Martha hold the stage for the first part of the play and begin their own interpersonal drama before their audience shows up, their audience being Nick and Honey. Nick and Honey are at a disadvantage in the evening that en

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a script learned from parents, teachers, friends, and others, and this script tells each person how to behave in accordance with statuses and social roles. There are limitations to this approach, for real people do not have a clear and details script and do not rehearse. Each day, we revise the script we have according to what happens to us (Thio 131). However, in the case of George and Martha, these two are rehearsed because they have done this many times. Much of this story is structured around feedback loops. Feedback is "any sign offered to a source that the message has been received, and understood, or perhaps, misunderstood" (Huber and Wien 7). We learn to communicate by imitation and by expressing ourselves and getting feedback from those with whom we communicate. To be alive is to communicate, though to communicate effectively is an art that has to be nurtured and developed. We communicate much verbally, but we also communicate non-verbally, often unconsciously. Getting control of our non-verbal communications is also a way of becoming more effective as communicators and also contributes to our ability to handle stress and resolve conflicts. A feedback loop involves interplay that builds on each moment and in

Category: Film - T