Better and Bested in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

It’s a play full of contradictions, secrets, lies, and unspoken rules. It’s a play decidedly for adults, but about a child—an imaginary one, no less. It takes place on a college campus, but it is absent of students. And it’s about “fun and games” and “playing pretend,” but its games are harsh and shocking, and playing pretend involves vengeance and even murder. Wes & Erin discuss Mike Nichols’s 1966 film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, adapted from Edward Albee’s 1962 play, and ask what it has to say about the nature of game and play itself, as well as what might be generative on the one hand or contraceptive and inhibiting on the other about our relationships with our spouses, our parents, our children, and our work. Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: It's a play full of contradictions, secrets, lies, and unspoken rules. It's a play decidedly for adults, but about a child, an imaginary one, no less. It takes place on a college campus, but it is absent of students. And it's about fun and games and playing pretend. But its games are harsh and shocking, and playing pretend involves vengeance and even murder. Today we're discussing Mike Nichols 1966 film, who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Adapted from Edward Albee's 1962 play, and asking what it has to say about the nature of game and play itself, as well as what might be generative on the one hand, or contraceptive and inhibiting on the other, about our relationships with our spouses, our parents, our children, and our work. This is Erin O'Luanaigh. And this is Wes Alwan, and you're listening to Subtext. So, Wes, as a way of getting started, I thought I would ask you, because I've been thinking about it, and I don't really have an answer, but I was wondering if you have an answer to the question, what is a game? What constitutes a game? 1:18 Wes: Hmm. It's a big question. 1:21 Erin: This is a really. I know it's a tough one. Obviously, enjoyment doesn't have a lot to do with it. 1:26 Wes: Can I define fun instead? Since it's fun and games? 1:30 Erin: Yeah, yeah, let's. Let's do fun first. 1:32 Wes: Let's do one of the words. I'm just kidding. 1:34 Erin: Oh, okay. 1:35 Wes: What is a game in this context? What is a game in general? It's funny because we're reading Wittgenstein from my other podcast. And so the idea of a game is something that's important to him, specifically the idea that language is a game. Certain rules, certain moves that you're allowed to make, and certain moves that you're not allowed to make. There's some sense in which it's moving away from the idea of just language, that, you know, it's playful and unhindered, but there's some sense in which it's guided by something, that there's stakes, that there's something to be lost in one, that there's such a thing as fair play. You know, I didn't actually give this a lot of thought in preparation, but I would say the one thing that occurs to me is supposedly there's a game or a set of games going on between Martha and George. And George thinks that by mentioning their imaginary child, Martha has violated the rules of the game, and so he's going to have to get her back, do what it seems in the end, it's more meant to be a cure. But anyway, what were you thinking with 2:39 Erin: regard to this in relation to your last point? I think, too, that she has violated the rules of their particular game, it seems. But then that kind of launches them into a different game. Or then it's like the wheels come off and they're playing a more vicious. They're taking the bumpers out of the gutter and playing just like raw bowling at that point. 2:58 Wes: Yeah, it seems no holds barred from the very beginning. Right. Where is the game in this? Where are the rules? 3:04 Erin: I'm wondering if that's a. I don't want to say a flaw metaphorically. I'm just kind of wondering if it's not quite as well defined as it could be in the text and in the film. I mean, I pretty much just watched the film because it basically is the play. I think that the play is a lot funnier than the film, or at least a bit funnier than the film. And this is something I read about in the very brief chapter in Mike Nichols biography by Mark Harris. I just quickly glanced at it this morning, and this is something that Mike Nichols, I guess, is on record saying that he decided to make the film less funny than the play adaptation. The play. They were getting like a big laugh every couple of minutes. And Nichols felt that because a film audience can't respond in the moment to laughter like that, that he would have to sort of drain it of some of the laughter and make it a more serious film. 3:55 Wes: I read the play as well after watching the film. So I had seen the film at least twice before, watching it again in preparation for the podcast. And those two times I was much younger and I was just mesmerized by it, by the wit, by the language, and my overall feeling was very positive. And then I saw it performed live once, and I think Kathleen Turner was playing Martha. 4:21 Erin: Oh, you saw that production. Okay. Yeah, I really wanted to see that when it was at the Long Wharf. 4:26 Wes: Yeah, I think that was in D.C. that I saw that. 4:29 Erin: Yeah, it was at the Long Wharf in New Haven for a brief stay. And it was in D.C. for a brief time. 4:34 Wes: Okay. 4:35 Erin: And I think it was in LA for a bit, too. But while it was in New Haven, I really wanted to see it and never got the chance. But I knew my cousin went to see it, said it was fantastic. 4:42 Wes: Yeah, it was really great. This time I was like, oh, my God, this is brutal. This is absolutely brutal. 4:50 Erin: Yeah, it's like a root canal of a film. It's an endurance test. 4:55 Wes: Remembered it that way. So I don't know what changed in me that it just. I still enjoyed it, of course, but it just was hard. Hard to watch. But one thing I will say is that I also read the play for the first time in preparation, just as. Instead of taking notes during the film or watching the film a second time and taking notes, I just read the play and took notes. And most of the play is in the film. I don't know how that works because the play apparently is three hours and the film is two hours and something. Maybe the film goes fast. I don't know how they fit most of the play into the film, but you can see how a lot of the lines in the play could be read in a softer way or in a way that's more tongue in cheek. Right. So that you could get a more playful relationship between Martha and George. And maybe that's the way stage productions generally go. So that could be it. It's hard to read the play after you've watched the film and not just hear Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor going at it in their specific way, which they do so well, but you can see how that softness might be introduced. But going back to your thing about the game and, you know, I think you were saying it's too. Maybe it's not well defined enough. The rules aren't well defined. 6:07 Erin: I think part of that is the genius of the play. It's the flexibility of the truth. Right. Just for my own part, I'll say that I read the play and saw the film in high school, and I think that was a very bad idea. I think I was much more concerned at 15 or 16 that this might be a relationship that was more common than, of course, than it actually is. 6:29 Wes: That's what the future holds. 6:30 Erin: Right. Right Now I realize how uncommon and crazy this is, and maybe we have lax divorce laws to thank for that. But anyway, of course, the Burtons were no strangers to those divorce laws. But anyway, yeah. I think watching it now, oddly enough, the thing that it reminded me of a lot this time around was Kiarostami's Certified Copy. I don't know if you've seen that film. 6:52 Wes: No. 6:53 Erin: Okay. It's with Juliette Binoche and a fabulous actor who's also an opera singer whose name escapes me right now. And I think that was his first film, too. But anyway, it's a very interesting film. And it's not anything like this in terms of tone, but it's A film about the relationship between these two people. And I don't want to spoil anything, but it's kind of not what you think it is. Or it sort of evolves or takes on different qualities over the course of the film. I really recommend this to our listeners. And I think. I don't know that other people have thought to make the connection between these two things. Or if it's just the fact that I really love Certified Copy. And it occurs to me right now, maybe there is more of a connection than I realize. But it's a film in which you think that these two people at the beginning are meeting for the first time. They just meet on screen, and you see them meet and then the relationship unfolds. But in fact, that may not be the case. And you're never quite sure about the nature of the relationship. And it goes in very strange directions and fascinating directions over the course of the film. And so I was just thinking about the ways in which Kiarostami might have had Virginia Woolf in mind and might have been indebted to that. What I'm trying to say is the fact that we don't quite know what game they're playing puts us, of course, in the position of. What is it? Nick and Honey. Even though we don't ever hear the name Nick in the play or. Sorry, in the film, in the play it's Nick. So it kind of puts us in their position right where we're kind of trying to figure this out as it's going along. I don't know how clear the rules of the game are to George and Martha themselves. And maybe the fact that we're not privy to that. It's not just putting us in the position of Nick and Honey, but it's also putting us in the position of being outsiders in their relationship, which is true, I think, of any relationship, that only the people in it knows how it functions. So I have two questions that arise from that, which is, is there a purgative element to game playing? And therefore, is the purgation that happens at the end or something like a purgation or catharsis? I think there's direct mention, at least in the sections of the play. Oh, exorcism, exorcism. So is there something purgative or is something exorcised at the end of the play? And can that coalesce with the idea of game playing? And can we say that there is a winner or a loser here? Because I was interested in that element of what you described. A game fundamentally as having, you know, winning and losing the stakes of the game. 9:12 Wes: The question of whether it's Purgative. You're reminding me of the time I was playing Settlers of Catan with my siblings and was getting taunted by one of them because there's a lot of trash talking when we play and it went too far and I stood up and I swept the pieces off the table, destroyed the game. So it can be purgative to dramatically end the game, which is a move that happens outside of the game. It was a move within Settlers of Catan that involves sweeping the pieces off the table. And so I think that for what's Purgative here, in the end, the two rules that we seem to know solidly as an audience are that it's not right for her to mention the imaginary child. And it's not actually, we know a few. It's not right for her to talk about the book thing. Whether that really happened to him or that's his fantasy is unclear. So we can talk about that later. But you can't talk about the imaginary child, you can't talk about the book, and then he's not allowed to kill the fantasy child. It would have to be a mutual decision. Unless the rule is that once she's crossed the line, he can legitimately cross the line. So you have me thinking about this question of Purgative now in terms of whether that. Does that happen in other sorts of games? Does that happen in the sorts of games that people play in relationships or just in social life in general, which are generally much less dramatic. Right. There's still self deception and illusion, but it's not like having an imaginary child or friend or something. Or does it always involve stepping out of the game and maybe into, so to speak, reality? Because there seems to be some association here between illusion and game playing. But anyway, as far as the rest of the rules go, it's really hard to figure out what the rules are because it shifts so much and their relationship is just all over the place, right? 11:05 Erin: Yeah. 11:06 Wes: One minute they're being nice, one minute they're being nasty. You don't know if they're being fake nice. You don't know if they're being fake nasty. All of it seems to be happening, but it's never clear when they're doing it. And it does all seem to be pre approved in a way or natural. Right. It just seems to be part of the course of things that they do this. So they're not surprising each other with their behavior very often. Even though it's surprising. 11:31 Erin: Yeah, to us. 11:32 Wes: So that's the purgative part. And then I think the other question. I'm not going to keep talking, but we can have this other question in mind as well as we go forward, 11:40 Erin: which was, is there a winner and is there a loser? 11:43 Wes: Right. Yeah. 11:44 Erin: You're making me think about a couple things. The idea that this is less a game and more something else. I don't know what, but perhaps a performance. Right. So you're making me think that they know the beats, they know the moves of the other person. It's kind of like an improvisation game, but with certain guardrails up. They seem to kind of generally know where the other person might go, but they're not sure at any particular moment which card they're going to draw. They each have, like, a set of. I'm really mixing my metaphors here, perhaps because it's really hard to define this, but they each seem to have a hand, you know, filled with, let's say, cards that have particular moves on them that they tend to make as individuals. And the other person doesn't necessarily know which card George or Martha is going to play at any given moment, but they kind of know what's in the other person's hand. So I'm wondering about the element of performance in that as well. And I'm also thinking maybe to just kind of set us up into a, you know, diving into the play here. I was thinking about this first moment quite a bit, the. What a dump. The Bette Davis impression. And I was thinking about that in relation to a game show. I don't play very many games. I'm not a game person. But oddly enough, I love certain game shows, especially classic game shows. And since I was a kid, I've loved watching what's My Line? And I, for some reason, have been on a. A little bit of a kick with that. And so for the past week or so that I've been home for Christmas break, I've been watching episodes of it with my family. And, well, I've kind of now gotten them hooked on it. And we've been watching, like, you know, maybe four or five episodes a night instead of watching a movie or something. So I've been thinking about. And that has celebrity guests, and it has. You know, there's kind of an odd bit of crossover here. But I was thinking about the opening moments and Martha repeatedly asking George, you know, what's that from? Come on, you know. You know, like, she's insisting that he knows the answer to this. That it's there, that he just has to flip through the mental files and find the answer. What's really funny about that is that she doesn't know. It's kind of like she's testing him. Or she's asking him, like, come on, you know, for the $5,000 answer, what is the name of this film? But she also does not know. And so she's asking him this because it's something that's kind of like bothering her. But it's also set up as this kind of game show format. It's also clearly a dynamic in their relationship where she either expects him to know the answer and alleviate her mental block, or she expects him not to know the answer, which seems more likely because he suggests it's Chicago, which is a ridiculous suggestion. And then she can belittle him for not knowing the answer or for giving a stupid answer. I don't know what could be said about that. Or if I'm making too much of this game show idea just because I'm primed for it. 14:26 Wes: Yeah, no, I like that. This is something that, you know, how much has happened before. How much is, you know, I was talking about how much are they surprising each other versus acting out roles that have been acted out in many times before. And that seems to be a lot of what's happening is acting out these agreed upon roles almost like a sadomasochistic role playing, except it's not happening in the bed. 14:47 Erin: It does once or twice, but not always with George. 14:51 Wes: Yeah, well, he's a voyeur at a certain point. Yeah. But they've decided which couples do that. It's okay to be mean to each other. I mean, many couples go down that route, and not as dramatically as this, but they are willing to engage in a certain amount of ongoing. Kvetching is not the right word. 15:10 Erin: Needling. 15:11 Wes: Yeah. And complaining to each other. And then the question is, when does it become disrespect? The point where disrespect maybe is the breaking the rule of the game thing. Ultimately some sort of thing that's going to set the really set the other person off versus staying at low level. Banter. Banter isn't the right word either. Maybe I'll think of it. But with this first scene, you have me thinking of like what a screenwriter would be thinking when they're trying to. So what's going to happen is you have like a very messy place and for some reason they haven't cleaned it up in expectation of guests. But then it turns out the Guests are coming at 2am and they weren't expected in a sense, at least not by George. But Martha probably expected him because she sort of set it up. It's almost like a kidnapping in a way. It'll turn out so they know the place is a mess and a dump. I guess the audience can know that on the stage to some extent. You could make it look that way. It's not so much a dump as it's cluttered. So how do you convey the character reaction to that in an interesting way where they're not doing simple exposition in a clunky, on the nose way or, you know, you don't just have Martha coming in, why didn't you clean this place up? Or. Which would be dumb. So instead you get this very interesting. Instead of fighting about the mess, they're fighting about the film. About the film that he can't remember. And as you pointed out, why are they fighting about this? She can't remember that either. He's berating him for not being able to remember. And what does she want from him? Why does she want him to be able to remember that? I mean, I think it comes out that don't, you know, anything? And it's the idea that he's not that into movies. He's not that into contemporary culture. You know, he thinks the movie is Chicago, which is ridiculous just because she mentions Chicago. So he's an old. Even though he's younger than her in spirit, he's an old fuddy duddy who's into his books. And so maybe that's our introduction is her. You know, ultimately we know she wishes he were more of a man of action. Right. Having some sort of spine and ambition, whatever it would have taken for him to taken over the college from her father, which seems to be the original plan. So that's the way ultimately that he's failed her, or it seems that that's the way. And so this complaint about the film becomes an indirect way about him not being able to remember. The film becomes an indirect way of complaining about that. So it's a cool opening in that it sets all of that up, right? With a seemingly trivial third object. But yeah, and it's playful. 17:40 Erin: I think it's important to note a couple of things. First of all, I think they in the film adaptation have been careful to take out the references to the fact that George is younger than Martha. I think because it's a little too unbelievable in the film to argue that even though Taylor's wearing a lot of age makeup and Stuff. She's unbelievably, I think, maybe 32 or 33. During filming. It was released when she was 34. 18:02 Wes: She gained, like, 30 pounds for the role. 18:05 Erin: Yeah, but the eye makeup and everything, like, that's one of the reasons why it had to be in black and white. Was because the makeup that they had to put on her to make her look like she was in her late 40s was so highly colored and everything that they had to shoot it in black and white for it to work. So I think they remove that. And I imagine that they are supposed to be just a mirror image of the slight age difference of what, two or three years between the younger couple. I don't know what role that's having in the play. I think this idea that she's older, even if only slightly older. And taking a kind of shrew wife slash shrew mother role towards him. I think it makes it less interesting, that insistence when he says that he's younger than she is. The thing I wanted to say about that, too, that opening idea with the Bette Davis film. I think it announces also kind of a dynamic which we're gonna see repeated with the younger couple as well, of this frustrated housewife. Beyond the Forest is a film. It's from 1949. So even in 1966, I think that would have been considered an older movie. Like, maybe. Actually, I always wanted to say like an 80s movie. But now the 80s is, like 40 years ago or something. So I keep thinking of the 80s as being 20 years ago. And it's not anymore. 19:18 Wes: I looked at the clip, by the way, and Bette Davis doesn't really sound like the imitations. She doesn't really do that. What a dump in the highfalutin way that Martha is remembering it. 19:28 Erin: But she's doing a Bette Davis impression and a kind of late Bette. She's doing a contemporary Bette Davis impression. But sort of like into the past, of beyond the Forest. 19:39 Wes: Right. Projecting that into the past. Okay. And Bette Davis almost was gonna be in this role. 19:43 Erin: Right. 19:44 Wes: Doing an imitation of Bette Davis. 19:46 Erin: I think Albee, even after he saw this film, was disappointed that she wasn't in it. Which I find hard to believe. Because I think that Taylor's performance is, like, actually so incredible. Yeah, it's a little crazy, actually. I was just thinking about the ways in which the dynamic that Martha described between Bette Davis character and Joseph Cotten's character in beyond the Forest is kind of like a mise enabeam of what's happening in George and Martha's marriage. And then it'll be repeated, of course, in Nick and Honey's marriage. So there's also that kind of establishment. So this sort of innocuous moment, which at first, for someone who doesn't know anything about the play or the film, might look like an ordinary pedestrian, slightly venomous, but not really tiff between the two, really is loaded with a lot of exposition right up front. 20:36 Wes: Very expertly done. 20:37 Erin: And a couple of things I noticed. Taylor says. She's describing the film and she's saying that Bette Davis comes home from a hard day at the grocery store. And Burton says she works in the grocery store. And Taylor, I should refer to them by their names. She says she's a housewife, she buys things. But there's this establishment of this idea of being a housewife as a hard day's work. And particularly in the way that Martha is emphasizing, like, you know, it's maybe the hardest job of all, which maybe we wouldn't argue with, but there's something there. And then she says something about. She does that sentence where she repeats modest three times. She comes home and something about. She walks into the modest living room of the modest cottage that modest Joseph Cotten has set her up in. And it's another, like, loaded phrase to set her up. Right. And it makes me think of a game, too. Right. Setting up the pieces of a game and then watching it all kind of unfold. So later, when this is a first private conversation between George and Nick, when Honey leaves the room to go to the bathroom, George says something like, we're merely exercising. We're working what's left of our wits. I was just thinking about that idea in relation to this first scene, this first moment. Because neither of them can remember what this film is. It doesn't really seem like an exercise. But of course, that's also a homonym for to exorcise something. So I'm just. I'm wondering basically, if this opening scene contains pretty much all the elements of the entire film or play within it. 22:07 Wes: Yeah, I think there's a lot. There's a lot packed in. There's a wonderful climax to that interaction. That part of this first scene that involves the movie, which is. George says, are they married? And she says, yes, they're married to each other. 22:22 Erin: Yeah. 22:22 Wes: And then she does the what a dump Imitation again. And then George is like, oh. And Martha goes. And the timing in the movie is absolutely perfect. This is the climactic moment. She's discontent, which, of course, seems to be telling us that Martha is discontent, which sets us up for a more ordinary type of conflict between the couple. Because I think what's going on really transcends discontentment. It's not, oh, I'm a housewife and the place is a dump. And discontented. There are elements of that. She wanted him apparently, to be more ambitious, but there seem to be other clues that go against that. And I'm not saying it goes either way, but, for instance, they've practically kidnapped this young couple. And by that I mean, right, They've been at some kind of cocktail party with Daddy, with the father, the president of the school, and here's a new professor and his wife. And at 2am they're going over to have drinks with Martha and George. That can't possibly have wanted to do that themselves. Maybe they did, but. 23:27 Erin: Well, I. I don't know. Honey kind of did. 23:29 Wes: And. And Martha says, this is to make Daddy happy. Did Daddy really want her to do that at 2am the way things pan out, it makes me suspect that you could, on one reading, say Martha and George are in cahoots, right? Mm. To screw things up for Nick and Honey. Because ultimately, Nick will say, you've damaged me. I'm sure you remember that. He ought to be worried about Honey because Honey has just run into the bathroom after George has revealed that he knows about her hysterical pregnancy. And Nick is like, you've damaged me. And George is like, okay, well, rearrange your alliances, buddy. It really sounds like. And Nick, right, is being groomed to take over the presidency of the college. So on the face of it, it looks like Martha has invited Nick and Honey over to humiliate George and to rub it in his face that here's this up and coming young man, right? Biologists could be a eugenics product, you know, Superman, ubermensch, who's gonna actually do what you couldn't do. But George, at least, right, is milking him for information that he can use against him. And it's unclear whether Martha is part of that. She might be part of that or it might be unconscious. But do you see what I mean? Did she really want him to be the biologist, or did she want him to be the historian? Did she really want him to take over Daddy's spot, or did she want to keep him from taking over Daddy's spot? 24:50 Erin: Sure. 24:51 Wes: I think that's kind of ambiguous in the film. And so the word discontent here at the very beginning, it could be quite ordinary, as it was in the movie being referenced, or as it can be in these relationships, or it can be something out of the ordinary, which it may be here. And at the very least, this. Something very out of or the ordinary is going on. 25:12 Erin: Right. You're making me think a couple different things. First of all, that idea that this could be a much more quotidian film, this had never occurred to me before you said that. But someone who didn't know anything about the play might go to this film thinking that it was some kind of. What are they called? Kitchen sink drama. A lot of these things coming out of Britain, these sort of realist films where it's like, you know, someone is trying to make their way in the world and they're beaten down and they're in an unhappy marriage and they're. You know, exactly what you describe. And of course you have two. Elizabeth Taylor was British born, though not by heritage. And of course, Burton is from Britain. And so this might be something where they're just struggling to pay the bills and yelling at each other while one of them continually screws up his job or something like that. You're making me realize maybe the set of Betrayed Expectations. 25:59 Wes: There are so many trite ways it could play out that have played out a million times in dramas and. And movies. 26:05 Erin: Yeah, it's so clever the way that they. And really beyond the Forest, which was a failed film, is kind of an early version of that kind of thing that had this full flowering. And even with the black and white cinematography, because a lot of those movies that were made in England, the kind of high point for that was like late 50s, early 60s, they were being made in black and white. So I could just imagine somebody going into this theater not knowing anything about the play and thinking that they're just going to see this struggling working class couple or something and how their innocence might have been stolen by this film. 26:34 Wes: Yeah. 26:35 Erin: Anyway, the brilliance of what you're saying about the biology thing is also making me and Martha's efforts maybe to impede his advancement less than to try and encourage it or help him develop. Makes me think about the fact that, first of all, they're living on this house on campus, and yet they could scream at each other and no one hears. Like, this is a campus that is conspicuously absent of children. Right. 26:58 Wes: It's filmed at Smith, right? 27:00 Erin: Yeah. In the middle of the night, I 27:02 Wes: guess, but I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah. 27:03 Erin: Yeah. But it's conspicuously absent of these kids. Not children, but these college kids, kids that are a little bit older than their imaginary child. And kids are of course, the question of this whole thing, I think that ties into what you're saying about biology, so maybe we can shift into that a bit. But this idea of is it wanted, is it not wanted, is it impeded, is it nurtured or cultivated? Is related to this Honey question of. Which maybe ties back into Martha, which is, did they actually want a child? And that's why they have to have this imaginary child. I think that's the reading that we're probably supposed to take from the film, but it's twinned with this idea that Honey is deliberately trying to avoid having a child. She does not want to give birth 27:45 Wes: and George accuses her of having aborted. Yeah. 27:48 Erin: Yes. So, though at the beginning. And a lot of stuff that Nick's character says at the beginning, of course, unravels, and he becomes far more honest over the course of the night, which is one thing that the game, whatever this game is, seems to achieve. That might arguably be said to be a net positive, that he becomes more and more honest about his failings and his true intentions over the course of the evening or the night. But he does say at the beginning that they're waiting to have a kid, and he does seem to believe that. I think this idea that Honey is secretly having these abortions is hidden from her husband, of course, and so are her feelings of anxiety towards having a child. In other words, I think she is also convincing her husband that she wants to have a child and yet, unbeknownst to him, is having these abortions and doesn't actually want this. We'll call it, a biological project of theirs to advance. Yeah, I'm wondering about that connection. And also about the ways in which Nick and Honey are mirror images of George and Martha and the ways in which they are something quite a bit different. Like, we have this theme with Honey of illness, which, of course, Martha is this earth mother, as she calls herself, who's never been sick a day in her life, according to her husband. And then we have the same kind of principle of a sort of reversal in George and Nick, in which Nick is the younger, more idealistic, as you say, the Ubermensch. And George is obviously someone who looks as though he's been. He's had the life sucked out of him and is maybe the less healthy in his marriage. Yeah, I don't know what we can say about that. 29:27 Wes: Yeah, we should think about this being a historian versus being a biologist. Opposition that's set up, of course, in the beginning. Martha thinks he's a mathematician, which is really Interesting. The biologist represents a few different things in the film. Being a biologist, for one thing, it represents his physicality, his fitness, the fact that he has a hard body, the fact that he played doctor at a very young age with honey, so that nothing was a mysterious, there was no mystery when they got married. And the fact that he's a ubermensch and specimen, blonde haired, blue eyed Superman and according to George's interpretation will be looking to the future. And he's. He's the future person in the sense of the one who's being groomed to take over, take over the school, but take over, you know, one might think society or culture in general. George will make several speeches suggesting that civilization is going to pot. So the very first part, before I refer us to the text on some of the stuff, I just want to say that with the math thing we can talk about it maybe at some point. But what did Martha want out of a mathematician that she can't get out of a biologist? Right? She'll say, you're right in the meat of things. He seems to relish the idea that he's a biologist. It's a very good opposition to George. A mathematician would have been something different altogether. Still. And that's not a humanities person, right? Thank God. But still more abstract and not as of this world or a person of action. 31:02 Erin: Perhaps the mathematician knows the right answer faster. I mean, maybe not about a movie, right? Because maybe a humanities person would be more likely to. No entertainment type facts, right? But maybe he would be able to come up with the answer quickly because he has something that provides an answer, provides a solution. It's right there. 31:21 Wes: And also he's a realist, right? So Albee himself said the song who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? That's about who's afraid of doing without illusions. And of course in the end they have to give up this particular illusion. And there's another point where George will say people who can't abide the present either look to the future or look to the past, right? So he's absorbed in the past. Nick is about on George's interpretation of biology looking to the future and eugenics and things like that. And the mathematician is in this Platonic abstract world, so one might say the present, the mathematician is the one who can abide the present state of things because he's the only one who can be in this eternal realm. 32:05 Erin: Then you're making me think too, that if the mathematician can abide the present and he turns out to be a biologist, which is much More future directed then that would represent a disappointing lack of immediacy to Martha. In other words, she wants the mathematician because she wants someone who's in the present, not someone who's either in the past or the future. Though the future is better than the past. I think. 32:25 Wes: George says Martha is seldom mistaken. Maybe you should be in the Math Department or something. 32:31 Erin: Well, maybe if he was in the Math department, then he would have been able to have an affair with her instead of just hoping for some future consummation. 32:38 Wes: Yes, it's just a right line, right? The right line is the erect pointing straight up rectitude, maybe in terms of that. Straight lines and rectitude versus undependable biology. 32:52 Erin: There you go. 32:53 Wes: Bodies that may be soft or not, but often if they're drinking too much. But anyway, what I was going to point us to was just the way George's interpretation at the very beginning when Nick says he's a biologist and he says you're the one who's going to make all that trouble making everyone the same. Rearranging the chromosomes, not zones. Zones or whatever it is. And then Nick corrects some chromosomes and George goes on to talk about science fiction. And you people are rearranging my genes so that everyone will be like everyone else. Now I won't have that. It would be a shame. I mean, look at me. Is it really such a good idea if everyone was 40 something and looked 55? You didn't answer my question about history. So that's the introduction to that. And then there's this idea put into circulation that George couldn't take over the History Department. He's in it, he's not it, he's not identical to it. And Nick will one day run the Biology Department and may run the History Department as well if he becomes the president of the school. This comes up again. So when Martha comes back after her and Honey have been away, and Martha comes back later dressed up, then there's that shotgun scene. And then you get Martha being corrected about Nick being a biologist. And she's pretty resistant, right, to accepting that even though Nick is there. No, Martha, he's a biologist, he's in the Math Department. And then Honey says biology. Maybe only Honey is present at that point, I'm not sure. And then she says she can't be expected to remember everything because she has to keep track of all the teachers and their goddamn wives. But she's like, he's a biologist, good for him. Biology is even better. It's less abstruse going to this distinction we were making between math and biology. And George is like abstract abstruse in the sense of recondite. So anyway, biology is even better. It's right in the meat of things. And then Nick reenters and she says, you're right at the meat of things, baby. I love that. So whatever she wanted, she finds a way to interpret this in a way that serves her impulses. And then she says something which suggests she might have known he was a biologist all along, which she tells Nick that Georgie boy says you're terrifying. And he says, I didn't know that I was. And then Honey says, it's because of your chromosomes, dear. So I'm a little unsure of that if maybe something wasn't revealed to make that make sense. But it seems like the suggestion I got was that Martha and George had actually talked about this before and talked about the whole chromosomes thing and the whole biology thing. I might be wrong about that. 35:32 Erin: This is presumably after Martha has crossed the Rubicon by bringing up their imaginary son with Honey, who of course we don't yet know is imaginary. But George says, there's one thing in this whole sinking world that I am sure of, or if there is one, it is my partnership, my chromosomological. Chromosomological partnership in the creation of our blonde eyed, blue haired son. That seems to me in itself to have a kind of what you're talking about, a kind of retraction within the assertion. 36:01 Wes: This is just occurring to me, but you're making me think about the relationship between reproduction and generation, right? And fantasy, also artistic creativity, but fantasy here normally, right, Having a baby has something to do with the chromosomal partnership. But here it has to do with being willing to enter into this fantasy together. Or maybe this delusion or illusion together. Maybe it's psychosis and that's the way they have produced the baby. And there's lots of talk about the baby's eye color, right? And you know, earlier on, Nick suggests she doesn't know what chromosomes are. And Martha says, I know what chromosomes are, sweetie. I love them. And George says Martha eats them for breakfast. She sprinkles them on her cereal. It's very simple. Martha, this young man is working on a system whereby chromosomes can be altered. Well, not all by himself. He probably has one or two co conspirators. Genetic makeup of the sperm cell changed, reordered to order actually for hair and eye color, stature, potency, I imagine hairiness, features, health and mind. It's important because Martha later on will say that he can only see specks, he can't see minds because of this microscope. Most important, mind. All imbalances will be corrected, sifted out. Propensity for various diseases will be gone. Longevity is assured. We will have a race of men, test tube bred incubator born superb and sublime. The cost of that, he thinks, right, is that there's going to be less diversity. First of all, it's going to involve what he quote unquote regulation, where you're involuntarily sterilizing people and then loss of liberty. But also history, which is my field, history, of which I'm one of the most famous bogs will lose its glorious variety and unpredictability. I and with me the surprise, the multiplexity, the sea changing rhythm of history will be eliminated. There will be order and constancy and I am unalterably opposed to it. I will not give up Berlin. So there's something forward looking about having a child, right? About giving birth to the next generation, which is going to take over. And that's what George apparently is slated to do with the school or was not anymore. And why not? Because he tried to do something creative, right? He tried to give birth to a novel. But the forward lookingness, the next generation, the quasi eugenicist, it's not really eugenicist project, but you know what I mean. The gene, the chromosomal partnership of having a baby together, that's been denied George and Martha. And they can do it in fantasy. And they do it even to the point where they're designing their own kid. What he looks like, his eye color, right? They'd have that big disagreement over eye color. Is it blue, Are they blue? Are they green? It's like a eugenicists type of disagreement. And then that extends into these fantasized disagreements about why he was messed up, why he was troubled, why he left home. And George is claiming it's because Martha was incestuous and baiting him at 16. And Martha says it's because George is a failure, you know, and they're having like what seems to be a serious fight over and accusations over something that an it or a hymn that really doesn't exist. But anyway, I think what you, you know, what you just pointed to is really important. This parallel between George's idea that biology means eugenics and their failure to have a real baby and only be able 39:22 Erin: to do it in fantasy is the motivation here. Do we accept the conventional understanding of this play, that it is out of a desire for a child that must have Been thwarted by a failure of biology of some kind. Right. Infertility in one or both of them, which they're compensating for. 39:41 Wes: I think that's the most probable reading, which is that they wanted to have children and couldn't because one of them is infertile. Although it's kind of suspicious that there are no accusations floating around about that. 39:55 Erin: I know that's exactly what I was going to say. 39:58 Wes: That's not the case. So I love that about this place. The suspicion is aroused. George is not the only one who's suspicious. Suspicion is aroused that one of them. I even suspect it might be the fact that neither of them wanted a kid. That's just my gut feeling is that neither of them actually wanted a kid or they were ambivalent. And you see this in Honey, right? I don't want kids. I don't want a baby. I don't want to be hurt. And then later on at the very end, I do want a babe. 40:24 Erin: Yes. Well, only because she's boozed up and she's affected by Martha's little story about the kid who, you know, you thought was not as attractive because he had dark hair. But then, hooray. Here's Wander a topic of discussion which makes me roll my eyes. But the other element of this which I'm wondering about is of course, the parental relationships. There's something very Tennessee Cat on a hot tin roof about every time Martha or just Elizabeth Taylor says the word Daddy. It makes me cringe. 40:54 Wes: Right. 40:55 Erin: There's something big. 40:57 Wes: Daddy, just what makes you so big? All I can think of. That's all I can think of when someone says Daddy. 41:04 Erin: I don't know why she's always a daddy's girl, but she is. There is something, it seems to me, inherently thwarted about her ability to have a child with George because of the fact that she is still being infantilized by her father. It's odd. She and Honey are kind of physical opposites. Taylor is with the gained weight especially. She's extremely voluptuous. As I said, she calls herself an earth mother, which is an odd thing for someone who's not a mother. Whereas Honey is more of what we would expect someone who is not yet sexually mature to look like in terms of a body, just on a basic level in terms of body type, because repeated mention is made of her slim hips which are supposedly going to prevent her from giving birth. 41:51 Wes: And she acts like a little girl in many ways too. 41:53 Erin: Yes, she does. I think there's evidence of this too, in the Fact that George hasn't been able to give birth, proverbially speaking to his novel, and there's obviously some issue with his parents. But there seems to me to be something infantilized about the two women and therefore contraceptive about the fact that both of them have these overbearing father figures. And it's related to me, ironically, with Martha and perhaps logically with Honey, related to a kind of inherent lack of sexual maturation, something little girlish about their relationship with their fathers that then impedes their relationship with the husband. 42:36 Wes: Yeah, I think that's very good. And I think that might be why Martha perhaps doesn't actually want George to be president of the school and why she may have worked actually to prevent that, but also seems to be working to prevent Nick or George is at least, maybe she's involved, maybe she's not. But one of the results of this whole thing is that they have the goods on Nick if they want to use them, if they want to sabotage his rise. So. 43:04 Erin: But that's very funny turn of phrase, 43:05 Wes: so to speak, assuming that he can perform, that he has some performance next time and not just potential. But as Martha puts it, before we 43:15 Erin: move on to a discussion of what's going on with George and his parents and this friend of his and bergin, et cetera, et cetera, before we move on to that, which I think is really important, is there something we can say here about. I'm sure you were reminded, as was I, of the Graduate and of your vampire thesis with Mrs. Robinson in that film. Is there some connection we can make here between Martha and Nick in that regard as related to their sort of lack of conception. It seems to me that of course, you know, there's something inherent in the Mrs. Robinson relationship with Benjamin that even if she is still, and she should be still able to have a baby, of course, that seems to me to be an inherently anti conception kind of relationship. And I'm wondering if there's a relationship we can draw not only between, of course, the obvious vampiricism with George and Martha and the younger couple, but something in the fact that the sexual relationship between Martha and Nick is thwarted and how that might mirror, what do I want to say, antiseptic relationship between Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin. I don't know if there's something there. 44:23 Wes: Yeah, it's interesting. Speaking of the game again, George. So on the one hand he seems to act like she's going too far if she sleeps with Nick. It's more subtle in the movie, but in the play, Martha And Nick start fooling around on the couch. And then George comes in, pretends not to notice and just pretends to read sitting there. And Martha's getting unhappy that he's not being jealous. And he's like, no, you two go ahead, don't bother with me. I'm just going to read. And then she's pissed off and that's why she ends up taking Nick upstairs. And then even more so in the play than in the film, the suggestion is that they definitely did not consummate because he couldn't. 45:04 Erin: Yeah, the film, it's actually pretty muddy. 45:06 Wes: He couldn't get it up. 45:07 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 45:09 Wes: It's muddier in the film, I think. Which is funny because you think the film seems to try to soften this in a way. But then it seems harsher to me because they don't want to show the make, you know, the two making out. Except, you know, he's seeing something through the window. But they don't want to do the voyeur thing. This kind of sick, perverse George being a voyeur thing sitting there in the same room. But you know, of course I did think of. Mrs. Robinson. Yeah. Are you trying to seduce me, Martha? I don't know. You know, I did think too of, okay, she's 53, he's 46. Maybe closer in the film than the play. But two middle aged people, they have this young couple over. What the hell? 45:46 Erin: Why is that? Wouldn't they welcome this young couple? 45:50 Wes: Well, I mean, yes, if it were a normal interaction and not at 2am Maybe, you know. Right. But the whole attempt to seduce in various ways. Yeah, seduce in various ways. And it's not just her seducing Nick. It's the whole thing is a seduction. It's getting information out of Honey, getting information out of Nick. It's almost like exposing these youngsters to a primal scene. Even if that primal scene is just they're fighting, they're exposing themselves. In a sense, it's exhibitionism. They're exposing this kind of fighting which would happen in private. I mean, yes, people do it in front of others. They can't help themselves. But they've raised fighting to the level of an art form. Right. And they're putting on a performance for these two youngsters. So I didn't think a lot about this parallel, but of course I saw it. I don't know if you have any other thoughts on this older generation to younger generation relationship and how it played out in the Graduate versus how it plays out here. 46:47 Erin: There's an element of initiation, which is similar to what you were pointing out in the Graduate episode of a sense of a warning. All the Dynamics, as between Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin letting the new couple know what they're in for at this college. Basically, the element of performance is interesting because, again, it makes me think, like, okay, again, it's more of a game show. Literally, those two words together as a kind of portmanteau. It's more of a game show that they're playing than a game, per se. They need an audience in some essential way. It's not enough for them to put on this performance without them. But another thing that I was thinking, and maybe this is just asinine and I don't know, maybe it's a bridge too far, but I'm thinking, like, when would you actually have someone over at 2:00 clock in the morning? And it would only be if the party that was going on was so great that you didn't want the party to end. Or it would be on a kind of a special occasion kind of night, like at a wedding, when you would then go out after or, you know, keep the party going until the wee hours. The only real instance I can think of is a wedding. 47:50 Wes: Well, this is why it's so strange in the beginning, right? So George doesn't know the couple are coming over. So Martha is foisting this on him at 2am I think she's foisting it on the couple as well because they don't seem all that enthusiastic about being there. It looks to me like they feel. Nick and Honey kind of feel obliged. And then they try to excuse themselves and leave as soon as they get there, given what's going on. But they feel obligated. And at a certain point, Martha's going to say, you know, you're the houseboy. You're going to do what I say because I'm the daughter of the president and you want to get ahead. This is why I called it a kidnapping. And I think it's kind of that way from the beginning. They've been kidnapped and taken to this or, you know, come over to this house for a kind of initiation that I don't think Daddy knows what's going on with these initiations, a regular thing. 48:39 Erin: But anyway, that's why I think there's something, thematically speaking, antiseptic about this relationship, because it is a kidnapping. It is, of course, Nick bears a striking resemblance to their imaginary child. And there is something very Oedipal going on with the two of them, of Course, in the actual Oedipus story, the mother and son do conceive with each other, but in this instance, it seems to be something that can't have any kind of consummation. By its very nature. 49:08 Wes: We definitely hope that they haven't consummated. And I think it's important that it seem like they haven't consummated. Because for all the cruelty that happens within the play, that really does break the rules. I think it breaks the rules not just for the audience, but it would break the rules for Martha and George. Maybe she is sleeping around with everyone, and maybe I'm wrong about that. But this is another one of these muddy areas. Where is the idea of her infidelity? Is that part of the fantasy or isn't it? You know, you could ask that about any aspect of the play. But it seems, at least in this particular situation, that he accuses her of going too far, and therefore he gets to kill off the kid. But there's too far and there's too far. Right? There's. You broke the rules, therefore I'm changing our fantasy life. 49:55 Erin: Yes. 49:56 Wes: And in order for us, you know, it's purgative, like, so we can actually be closer and it can just be us. If that works. And then there's, you broke the rules, therefore this relationship is over. Right. Those are two very different things. And so we can always ask. Yeah. What are the rules that would break the actual relationship? He thinks she's breaking a lot of rules that allow him to kill off an imaginary boy. But apparently she didn't break any rules that would lead him to end the relationship. Because by killing off the imaginary boy, it's like a renewal of vows, which is actually a phrase that George uses at some point in the play. 50:32 Erin: You're making me consider a couple of things here. First of all, the insistence of at least Nichols and I think probably also Albee, that this is a couple that is dysfunctional because they love each other so much. I don't know that that's absolutely, terribly clear in the play. But part of the baggage of what the Burtons bring to this is, of course, a kind of a. Like, even as they're being really vicious to each other, just because they have so much physical chemistry with each other. That comes across for me very well in the film, considering also the Burtons kind of baggage. I'm thinking about Martha's infinite variety, as it were. To use the Cleopatra thing, of course, we have to for the Burtons. And the fact that she is. I don't know what I want to say about this, but it seems important to say that she is so changeable. She has so many different registers. Burton has. Obviously he's a great actor. I don't mean that he can't have more than a few registers. But the character of George is somewhat limited compared to Martha's or Taylor. As Martha's volatility, her ability to be sort of low class, but then go into this high class mode at times, which seems right to me. She's discontent, but she's also the daughter of a college president. It's almost like she's slumming it with her own behavior. Or she's creating. She's inventing the slum around her that she wants to live in. I'm thinking about that in relationship to generation, to a generative impulse. What makes the fact that we don't know whether or not they've had this affair murky in the film is the offense that George takes and the way he is hurt by the suspicion that maybe they did consummate it. So he is offended. Then I'm using this word offense, like offense. Who is on the offense and who is on the defense in this game? It seems to me that George is continually on defense because he is more limited in his modes of attack. And so he has to shut down. It's like Martha is creating more and more possibilities, more and more varieties, and he has to start kind of closing down possibilities in order to almost like what, I don't know, direct them. Put his arms around the relationship and kind of hold everything in. Hold the pieces in that Martha continually kind of wants to explode. I'm thinking about this, as I say in relationship to the way that their characters function and the fact that Martha seems to be able to shapeshift much more than George does. So is that part of the dynamic of this relationship? Martha wants to continually explode things. George has to shut them down in order to keep her tempered and to keep the relationship in a kind of positive tension just between the two of them, you know what I'm saying? Is this important? 53:16 Wes: I mean, that sounds right. I mean, at one point she says, George is out there somewhere in the dark. George, who's good to me and whom I revile, who understands me and whom I push off. Who can make me laugh and I choke it back in my throat. Who can hold me at night thinking, you know, you used the word hold there, right? Who can hold me at night so that it's warm and whom I will bite. So there's Blood. Who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules. Who can make me happy. And I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha. Sad, sad, sad. She's talking to Nick here. 53:53 Erin: I love that speech. That is like Shakespeare, just a little more of it. 53:58 Wes: Who I will not forgive for having come to rest, for having seen me and having said, yes, this will do. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha. Sad, sad, sad. So this is the way at least she sees it, right? I think the way you were describing it, accurate or not, seems to be the way she sees it. Where he's adapted to her variability and to her makes it sound like self loathing here. In a way that he can keep her in the relationship in a way that maybe others have not been able to keep her. Even if that means playing these sick games, unfortunately. 54:37 Erin: Right. 54:38 Wes: What you were saying before is she's always. Yes, she defines the game. She's always ahead because she always has more on him. Right. She knows the book story, the bergin story, and she can reveal at will the fantasy child, which he does not want revealed. You know, you would think she might be the one who would be ashamed of that, right? In some way, but it's not. It's him. So he wants to learn the games, play the games to keep things between her and him going. But he doesn't want the game to be overexposed, maybe through some of the details of the game to be made public. 55:14 Erin: And she's also insidious. I mean, she's working behind the scenes. The big thing that changes the nature of this entire night happens offstage when she tells Honey about the child. 55:25 Wes: Yeah. 55:26 Erin: The thing that the whole play hinges on, we don't even see. And then Honey's the one who reveals it. She's the one who sort of gives birth to the child in the conversation. And you're making me realize kind of the, you know, the idiocy of the maybe of this whole pretense, which, you know, I mean, you don't want to look too closely at it, of course, but, you know, Honey just brings it up like, oh, and what about your son? You know, like, totally normal. And it's like, okay, well, what did Martha expect to happen? Like, obviously this is all part of her plan. Right? And by the end of the night, they will know. Not to bring this up in company with other people at the college, but it seems that Martha has mentioned this in some sort of totally innocuous way in the other room, which we're not privy to, that makes Honey think it's perfectly fine to just mention it in front of everybody else. And it's like, of course, if they ever brought this up to anybody else at the college, it would just be dead in the water. Or like, what if they then went to the president of the college and started talking about his grandson? You know, I mean, the whole thing is crazy. It seems like the rest of the night must happen, if only in order to shut down the fact that Martha has innocuously introduced this fact, which has to be drummed out of everyone before they could be sent off to go and talk about this to everybody else. This is a small college, and everybody talks. There's a lot about what's unspoken and what isn't. One of the things I was thinking of when I mentioned the fact that Nick becomes more honest over the course of the night is that George will mention the playing of musical beds, as he calls it, that happens in the college. And Nick acts suitably disturbed by that fact. And of course, later we find out that's exactly what Nick is intending to do in order to advance his career. So there's an interesting tension here, as in any polite society, between spoken and unspoken truths and the things that everyone seems to know and the things that you're seemingly not supposed to talk about. So in a way, Martha seems to be dramatizing a kind of an essential fact of any closed community, like a college campus or something like that. I don't know. 57:28 Wes: Speaking of the end of the night, it's 2:30am and I have guests coming over, so. So we're going to move it to Postscript. The after party. Yes, with our guests, Nick and Honey. 57:39 Erin: Now, I keep thinking that you're saying milk and honey. 57:43 Wes: Yeah. That's interesting, because, of course, George and Martha reference to Washington and his wife. And then I think Nick is actually supposed, according to Albee, was a specific reference. But now I forget what the reference is to. But anyway, maybe we'll remember that and share that with you on Postscript, if that is an enticement. But we will talk about bergin. Is it bergin and Coke, what that's about. And a little boy shooting his mom with shotgun and then killing his father. Very exciting stuff and what that means. Anything else that we need to talk about? 58:19 Erin: I think that's enough intrigue for one Postscript. 58:21 Wes: Okay. 58:22 Erin: All right. 58:23 Wes: So that's what we're gonna do. All right. [email protected] subtext Also, this podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. airwavemedia.com airwavemedia.com.