TEHRAN – Tehran Theater will host the English stage reading of the play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” written by American writer Edward Albee on January 17.

Aran Ghaderpour is the director of the performance and Maryam Simorgh, Mahak Hadi Sadegh, Fatemeh Mousavi, and Niloofar Khodaei will read the characters’ dialogues on the stage, IRNA reported.

The play examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive an unwitting younger couple, Nick and Honey, as guests, and draw them into their bitter and frustrated relationship.

In the play, a middle-aged professor, his wife, and a younger couple engage one night in an unrestrained drinking bout that is filled with malicious games, insults, humiliations, betrayals, savage witticisms, and painful, self-revealing confrontations. The play won immediate acclaim and established Albee as a major American playwright.

The title is a pun on the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” from Walt Disney’s “Three Little Pigs”, substituting the name of the celebrated English author Virginia Woolf. Martha and George repeatedly sing this version of the song throughout the play.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962–1963 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play.

It is frequently revived on the modern stage. The film adaptation was released in 1966, written by Ernest Lehman, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal and Sandy Dennis. The play has also been staged by numerous directors. 

Edward Albee (1928-2016) was an American dramatist and theatrical producer best known for his play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1962), which displays slashing insight and witty dialogue in its gruesome portrayal of married life.

Among Albee’s early one-act plays, “The Zoo Story” (1959), “The Sandbox” (1959), and “The American Dream” (1961) were the most successful and established him as an astute critic of American values. But it is his first full-length play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, that remains his most important work.

In addition to writing, Albee produced a number of plays and lectured at schools throughout the country. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996. A compilation of his essays and personal anecdotes, “Stretching My Mind,” was published in 2005. That year, Albee also received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement.

SS/