The Play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?"

The Probationary Theatre Company put on another show at the Whitebox Theatre at Hyochang Park. The whole play consisted of four people, two couples. The first couple had been married for a long time, loved each other but were unable to express that love as they were two souls, perhaps soulmates, who had become deluded by the failure of meeting each other's expectations. Games, brutal games of verbal assault were played against each other with the second couple getting involved just be their being houseguests at 2am after a socialization party at the university where drinking was the standard. The drinking was heightened at the hosting house and was the catalyst for the inebriation and the "honest" baring of closet secrets to the guests in order for the first couple to attack one another.

Dark, sinister and convoluted the story seems until the end is reached where the husband's sick verbage is realized not to be so off at all but was "playing along" with the wife's delusions and borderline madness. The whole night of drinking and verbal and even physical abuse of the couple in front of their houseguests and at times towards their houseguests is tangled layers of a woven story using discordant threads; this all signifies the wavering between the fictions and the realities in their lives. A hard decipher.


I'm still slightly confused about the play being entitled "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" There seemed to be some political or social allusion to Virginia Wolf beyond the refraine picked up in moments throughout the play that were intended to strick humor and poke jabs at people. But upon reading online more about the title, the refrain was sung to the tune and meter of "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" and is a subtle questioning of who's afraid of allusions in their life. And in the final line, the deluded and stormy Martha states to her husband who is tender once she has been exposed, "I am, George. I am."

And thus ended the play, brilliant yet dark, soul-searching but filled with the fear of soul loss.