George and Martha
Does anyone need further descriptions? George and Martha have become two of the most iconic characters in American Theatre on a par with Blanche and Stanley.
Created by Edward Albee in the flush of his early career, George and Martha of course populate his masterpiece, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Hard to believe that before writing the three-act play, Albee had only written two one-act plays. Of course both of those one acts, “Zoo Story” and “The American Dream,” smashed right into the staid, established American theatre and set it back on its heels. Once “Zoo Story” was a hit, the theatre world had to reckon with a new voice.
“Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” a new book by Philip Gefter just released this month, offers some intriguing insights into Albee’s early career and the creation and production of the Broadway play. It weaves in American marriage circa 1950s/60s and covers the behind the scenes happenings around the film with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. So far, the writing is good, and the story holds the reader.
Albee was originally an aspiring poet and novelist who had been expelled from various prep schools and military schools before graduating from Choate. His formal education ended when he flunked out of Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He left the house of his parents at age 19 and headed to that Bohemian mecca, Greenwich Village. As he he flailed around working odd jobs, he tried poetry and a novel, but those didn’t go well. A chance meeting with Thornton Wilder changed the course of his art. Wilder suggested writing plays to the untethered Albee, and Albee began work on what would become “Zoo Story.” That one act, first produced in Germany, made his name.
I’m always amazed at how these chance meetings can change the trajectory of a career. In Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, the community included rising talents like Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Leonard Bernstein, and established figures like Tennessee Williams and Wilder. Imagine going down to the local tavern and meeting up with those folks who were jockeying for prominence?
