what the the title of "Virginia Woolf" means (possible SPOILER)

[joeybiltmore1]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 10:27am

(POSSIBLE SPOILER)

I hear a lot of people asking what the title of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" means. I think it's this:
It's the punchline to a joke that we're not in on.

We, the audience, hear only the punchline of the joke in the first scene and are left wondering what the heck the joke is. That's basically what goes on thematically the entire play. Nick and Honey (and the audience) slowly figure out the "joke" of the evening (George and Martha's "game").

Any other ideas?

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 10:31am

That's a interesting theory. Another one is that it's the relation between Virginia Woolf, mental problems, and emotional emptiness. Essentially, who's afraid of their own demons?

[romanov]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 10:35am

Albee originally wanted to call it "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", but Disney threatened to sue.

[broadway86]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 10:52am

I think that MrMidwest is right. Woolf had also been acclaimed for finding the absolute truth in all of her characters. So I guess you could also call it: "Who's Afraid of the Truth".

[Lamc16]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 10:57am

Interestingly, Albee first saw "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" written on a bathroom stall in Greenwich Village. He then wrote the play. The phrase, which starts out as a joke between faculty, ultimately comes to mean in the end, 'who's afraid to live without illusion,' to which Martha replies, "I am, George. I am." Obviously VW was a fitting name for the title because a great deal of her writing dealt w/ characters thriving on pretense and illusion (ie: Mrs. Dalloway).

[mandy2loveRB]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 11:13am

What I felt after seeing this show is that this title means, "Who's afraid of living without game (illusion, maybe), just with reality?", like you said. The one of the themes of this play. That is why Martha said "I am" at the end. And this is one of their ways ("games") to mask the reality (real question) they are afraid to answer...sorry, I am just babbling...if I get older and have more experiences, I might be able to understand better
Updated On: 6/2/05 at 11:13 AM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 12:58pm

Mandy2loveRB: You are correct. It mean's "Who's afraid to live without illusion?" They are. Their lives are built up on these lies, and at the end everything is stripped bare and they're left with reality - something they've never dealt with before.

[grizzabella]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 1:09pm

I agree. I also always thought it was a play on the "Three Little Pigs" story in that the Big Bad Wolf blows away the pigs' houses that are only pretense (straw and sticks), their safety, their illusions, just as the nasty games Martha plays strip away everybody's defenses and masks, and they're left with, as Munk pointed out, reality, which is something none of them has ever really dealt with.