Scene Journal

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Joseph "Chepe" Lockett
ENGL 401 -- Dr. Huston

Amy Hxxxxxxx has rounded up Jason Nxxxxxx, Paulette Jxxxxxx, and me for a scene and, after much hemming and hawwing, we agreed on Jason's suggestion that we do the "Humiliate the Host and Get the Guests" scene (pp. 122-150) from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. It's virtually the only reasonably sized, self-contained, interesting scene with two men and two women out of all the plays we read. (And those qualifications aren't too demanding, are they...?) Anyway, the scene has the virtue of giving Amy and me the more challenging roles (Martha and George) since we have somewhat more theatre experience, while still leaving interesting material for Jason and Paulette (Nick and Honey). And Amy and Jason will play an interesting pair of wary mutual seductees, since they only recently broke up....

First reading went fine, but it is a bear of a scene. Paulette tends to be very slow and fluid (almost, fancy that, honey-like....) in her readings, and Jason will be a little flat until he gets his bearings (as will I), but it looks like it will be fun.

First problem -- a four-person scene means you have four separate schedules to bring into alignment. It's been almost impossible to find time to meet. We've marked beats, though, which was a challenge in itself. Much of the time you basically get two independent conversations (Nick & Honey vs. George & Martha, or Nick & Martha vs. George & Honey) with occasional contact between the two (usually George's rhetorical bombshells and miscellaneous return retorts). But the beats will provide fine places to put blocking. Assuming we ever get to that....

Okay, we went ahead and blocked the scene sans Paulette, figuring we can add her in later (Honey's too drunk to move much, except when doing her "interpretive dance," and that's all by herself anyway). A couch, an easy chair, and a bar makes a comfortable living room set with enough seating but enough room to move around in too. At least we've waited to start blocking until we know we're in Hamman Hall, so we know what furniture we have available. I'm a bit nervous, though -- George is a very large role, and I always find it impossible to memorize lines until I have some blocking to tie them to. At this point, I only hope I have enough time to get my lines adequately learned.

Martha begins the scene enthroned in her easy chair, while Nick and Honey sit together on the couch and George drifts uncomfortably somewhere behind Martha's chair (he hasn't yet begun to fight back seriously -- but he will during this scene! -- and seems to have been holding back earlier in the act). Basically, everyone can stay seated for the first several pages except George, bartender and victim for the evening. Page 122 sees George cross from his starting point between the couch and the chair to the bar stage right, then back again to deliver Honey's brandy. Then, on p. 124, as Martha settles into her harangue about George's novel, he crosses behind her chair on "Please, Martha...." Seeing it's a hopeless task to deflect Martha, he gives up and slouches past the chair to stage left, prompting her "What's the matter with you, George?" He is, again, obviously marginalized and cut off.

Honey's insistent whine at last drives George into a long cross right behind the couch to the stereo (on the bar). As he looks through the music collection, he turns back in time to see Martha's pronounced leer at Nick, prompting his own "Gee." Stung by her constant innuendo, George takes a jab at the well-worn target of age -- a "daguerrotype" is an old type of photograph, and Martha's Amazon strength and behavior have been a constant source of jokes this evening. At last George has his own bit of fun, and puts on Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Honey straight-away launches herself downstage and into interpretive dance, and the air is positively heavy with classical art.

On page 128, Martha vaults from her chair to cross right to the stereo, and George deftly walks behind the couch to avoid her. Honey crosses up to argue with Nick, and finally, disgusted and soused, plops herself down in Martha's chair. George settles on the chair arm, trying to get some of his own back by flirting with Nick's wife -- but without much success, despite a generous dose of his own innuendo.

I had the idea that Martha could seize Nick and spin him into her arms for the slow jazz dance (the Amazon strikes again), but Amy and Jason vetoed it as too difficult. So instead it's a simple grab, and they begin slow-dancing downstage of the couch. Martha does get to show her sexual aggressiveness, though, by sliding her hand around to Nick's rear on "Don't be shy."

Soon (p. 131) Nick and Martha break to slowly dance to either side of Martha's armchair, Nick down left of it and Martha up right. George delivers his rhetorical arrows ("They like the way they move," "Aren't they cute" (an attempted provocation to halt Martha's move into forbidden subject matter), "You have ugly talents, Martha," and so on) to Honey or to the world in general, studiously ignoring his wife's scandalous conduct (and only making her try harder). Soon, however, he has to take a sterner tack, with "I warn you, Martha" (p. 133) and so forth, delivered directly to Martha from the chair arm. Simultaneously, Martha begins to deliver some of her lines ("His first attempt and also his last," et al.) to George, egging him on. At last her taunt of "naughty boychild" (p. 134) (delivered to George) pushes him over the edge, and he vaults to his feet with "I will not tolerate this!," then squeezed into the tortured "STOP IT, MARTHA!" This line is the start of an irrevocable build, so it has to be intense: George's very soul is being ripped out by the roots.

George runs stage right to the phonograph and stops the music, but Martha isn't finished with him yet. She gazes after George, taunting him further (p. 135). George continues with "DESIST!," only to be laughed at, and Martha, firmly into "Daddy's" role now, steps downstage past Nick on "If you respect your position here, young man...." George's series of "NO!"'s express rising horror at both what she is doing and what she is driving him to do, and Nick only now starts to get an inkling at how serious the topic is ("Wait a minute now..."). All these lines are fast and furious, piling atop one another until the explosion. George crosses downstage on "You will not say this!", and Martha backs away only a little with "the hell I won't." And at last it comes -- "snap!", as Martha says later -- and George seizes her by the throat with "I'LL KILL YOU!" Before Nick can even react he has pushed her back into her armchair (we'll figure out some way to move Honey out of there before then), only then to be hurled to the floor.

Then follows another long string of speeches where most people stay put in their seats -- except for George. I'm still playing with movements for the Get the Guests sequence, but I think it will involve a slow circling of Nick and Honey, with occasional lines delivered right to them (veiled insults like "It's a bucolic you see"). These lines can be venemous and hard: George is fighting back at last, and relishing showing Martha what danger a "hopped-up Arab, slashing at everything in sight" can pose.

We have Paulette integrated into the blocking now -- it turns out it's easy for her to leave the armchair on her gleeful "Violence! Violence!" and then settle back on the couch in the aftermath of the strangulation. I hope we can find music soon so that she can practice her interpretive dance.

The circling for "Get the Guests" is settling down now, too, and the lines are starting to come off book. It's one of the hardest sections, because George has almost no cues to rely on (and those he does have all sound remarkably similar), but it seems to be coming along. It's working out nicely that I can be right next to Paulette for the "Pouf!" pregnancy sequence, enhancing Honey's horror at his knowledge of her secret. Then while she confronts Nick, George sidles around behind the couch to take an appreciative viewpoint up right of Martha, sunk back in her armchair -- the same positions with which George and Martha started the scene, though now, of course, their power positions are reversed.

Then George can cross down in front of the couch to confront Nick on the "rearrange your alliances" speech, and send Nick packing to "look after your wife." "Acute embarassment, eh?" is a jibe at what George has done -- is that what I've caused you? George can take relish in getting back at Nick for the mockery of scant pages earlier in the script, especially with the peremptory "Go clean up the mess."

Well, it's done and performed. A few snags, though overall I'm fairly pleased. We didn't have music until just before the performance and thus couldn't experiment with sound levels, and Amy had an attack of quietness, so many of the lines during the jazz dancing were inaudible. And I screwed up some lines at the beginning of the Get the Guests sequence and had to flounder around a bit to get back on track -- not very good-looking for George's revengeful renaissance, but I made it back to the script eventually. Paulette was incredible: after seeing her in Sandy Haven's acting class and in English class exercises, I'm always amazed at how much she improves with work and direction. Jason held up his end very well too: he's been learning some good skills this year, in both English and acting class. And I got to play one of my favorite roles, if only for a scene and with imperfect lines. Great fun! Now I just need to wait until try-outs for the full-length version....