Lesson Plans Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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There is not any time limit to the games that George and Martha are playing with and without their guests. However, this is shown to be a potentially good event because it has destroyed the game that was keeping George and Martha apart. It is implied that the downward spiral of their life together may have changed direction: It will be better. Everyone is concerned with trying to figure out how their lives will be impacted by the arrival of Nick and Honey at New Carthage, and how to make the best of it. I will go too far.

There are easier things in this world.

Rules and organization are at the heart of the problems in this story. If the objective characters were not so caught up in following the rigid social and political order that is in place, they might have been able to respond to problematic issues freely, thus avoiding the painful consequences that come to bear. Identifying and clarifying the different games in the story indicates how the objective story is progressing.

Ha, ha, ha, HA! Cultures and races will eventually vanish. I, and with me the. There will be order and constancy. The same loss of inertia can be seen in his relationship with Martha. Good, better, best, bested. Musical beds is the faculty sport around here. She weighs somewhat more than that. Can I get you something? You can light my cigarette, if you're of a mind to.

I mean, a man can put up with only so much; without, he descends a rung or two on the old evolutionary ladder, which is up your line. Now, I will hold your hand when it's dark, and you're afraid of the bogeyman, and then I will tote your gin bottles out after midnight so no one can see, but I will not light your cigarette, and that, as they say, is that.

No, up to the nose. You can't afford to waste good liquor. Not on your salary. Not on an Associate Professor's salary! You can humiliate me. You can tear me to pieces all night. You married me for it! But I'm not a monster. Even though Virginia Woolf had been a highly praised award-winning success on Broadway, it was considered a highly unlikely prospect for a movie adaptation due to its raw subject matter and coarse language.

The general feeling was that the play would have to be toned down and sanitized in order for Hollywood to come near it, especially with the Production Code still in place. The Code had been established in the s as a way for Hollywood to create guidelines to determine what content was and wasn't acceptable for motion pictures. It was a way for the industry to self-regulate films without government interference. By the s, however, modern attitudes were changing, and the Code was considered to be antiquated and in desperate need of updating.

There was also a pervasive feeling that it was time for Hollywood to start taking more risks. The one studio head who was brave enough to take on the challenge of turning Virginia Woolf into a movie was Jack Warner of Warner Bros. When Warner approached Edward Albee about buying the rights to his play, he told him initially that he was buying it for actors Bette Davis and James Mason. That was a star pairing that Albee found exciting, and he agreed to let Warner Bros. Jack Warner brought in Ernest Lehman to act as both producer and screenwriter on the project.

Lehman was well-established as a screenwriter in Hollywood, having written or co-written some of Hollywood's best films including Sabrina , Sweet Smell of Success , North by Northwest and West Side Story However, Lehman had never produced a film before. Lehman surprised Jack Warner when he announced that he wanted none other than Elizabeth Taylor to play the frumpy, vulgar middle-aged harridan Martha. It was a broad stretch of the imagination for anyone to picture her in the role. Taylor at the time was just 32 years old and considered one of the most - if not the most - beautiful, glamorous and admired women in the world.

In addition, even though she had recently won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in Butterfield 8 , she was still considered more of a movie star than a serious actress. Lehman had to sell the dubious Jack Warner on the idea, and he eventually came to agree that there was great box office potential in casting Taylor.

The next person that Lehman had to persuade that Elizabeth Taylor was the right choice for the film was Elizabeth Taylor herself. Taylor was at the height of her fame at the time and had been a frequent tabloid target, especially in the wake of her highly publicized affair with Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton while both stars were still married to other people.

When they finally tied the knot in , Taylor and Burton became the most famous movie star couple in the world.

The Next Chapter in Story Development

Ernest Lehman sent Albee's play to Taylor to read while she and Burton were working on their third film together, The Sandpiper Both stars were very impressed with the drama, though Taylor, like everyone else, was surprised that Lehman would think of her for the movie. She admired the part of Martha, but wasn't sure she had the chops to play such a demanding role.

Richard Burton, however, believed she could do it and encouraged her to take on the challenge. According to Mel Gussow's book Edward Albee: A Singular Journey Burton told her, " I had to barricade myself. Why do I think Elizabeth would be right? I sensed certain wavelengths in her personality akin to Martha. I don't mean she is a shrew or tears husbands to bits, but I think she has a deeply feminine vulnerability People know how Uta Hagen played it.

They certainly know how Bette Davis would do it, but they wonder how Elizabeth Taylor will do it. So I started getting very, very excited about the idea, which I kept a deep, dark secret, because everyone in town was playing the game of casting this picture. The more they tell me that, the more excited I am to play it.

However, according to Edward Albee, Fonda's agent never even made him aware of the interest. Burton was considered one of the greatest living actors, but he, like his wife, did not seem like the obvious choice. He was known for playing strong, powerful, often heroic characters. However, he was intrigued with the challenge of portraying such a complex character so different from his usual roles.

He agreed to sign on to the film without much coercion. Having the famous Burtons co-star in a high-profile studio film didn't come cheap. It would be the couple's fourth film together. Albee's opinion on the casting mattered little as he had no power over any of the film's production. By his own account, he had only a few brief conversations with key people involved with the film, never visited the set and never even met Taylor and Burton until after the production had wrapped.

Both were experienced film directors. However, Taylor and Burton had someone else in mind to direct--Mike Nichols. Nichols, however, had never directed a film before in his life at the time. Nichols had, however, built up an impressive list of credits as a theater director after getting his start in show business as an actor and comedian. Then in his early 30s and already a Tony-award-winner for directing the hit Broadway plays Barefoot in the Park , The Odd Couple and Luv , Nichols understood stage drama and had the confidence to tackle the tricky task of bringing a controversial play like Virginia Woolf to the big screen.

Taylor and Burton already had a social relationship with Nichols. Burton and Nichols had struck up a close friendship before Elizabeth Taylor entered the picture while they were both performing on Broadway in - Burton in Camelot and Nichols in An Evening with Nichols and May.

When Burton got together with Elizabeth Taylor, the couple was impressed not only with Nichols' vast creative talents, but also his loyalty as a friend. When the couple became the number one tabloid target due to their romance, Nichols stood by them when many other friends distanced themselves. It was something that the Burtons would always appreciate. Elizabeth suggested Mike and everybody was horrified. But we were in a pretty good position, because we had a veto on the director.

He had been "knocked out" by the play and felt an instant connection to the material when he saw it performed on Broadway. I couldn't turn my back on this piece of material. To turn it down out of fear would be cowardice. Redford, however, turned the part down.

Edward Albee’s Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? | DET KGL. TEATER

He felt the character was too weak and didn't like the idea of playing someone who is humiliated throughout much of the drama. Nichols subsequently hired actor George Segal for the part. Segal had worked with Nichols in the hit Off-Broadway play The Knack , and both agreed that he would be able to bring something special to the role of Nick.

He added some exterior scenes as well as scenes set at a roadhouse that didn't exist in the play. At one point Lehman also tried to change George and Martha's imaginary child - a significant element in the story - into a real son who had committed suicide on his 18th birthday. However, this idea was quickly nixed since Nichols and others complained that it would change the entire essence of the drama.

In the end, Lehman's final screenplay adaptation remained very close to Albee's original words. There were cuts, but the film basically represented the play fairly. On one hand, it was an artistic choice that would help dramatize the story's dark, moody quality. In addition, it was also a choice made for the more practical reason that Elizabeth Taylor's middle-aged makeup looked far more believable in black and white than in color.

Nichols met with resistance from the studio over the choice to shoot in black and white, and it was a subject of much debate among the higher ups at the studio.

Some executives thought that the film would lose commercial appeal if it was in black and white. However, Nichols fought hard for the issue and even threatened to walk off the film over it. Meanwhile, Nichols prepared to direct his first film by watching scores of other films that he admired. He especially focused on works by European filmmakers such as Federico Fellini's 8 since they had the visual look he wanted to emulate with Virginia Woolf.

To prepare, Nichols had him watch some of the European films that he admired to get an idea of how he wanted Virginia Woolf to look. Nichols told him that it would be his job to figure out how to achieve this particular visual style.

Full Lesson Plan Overview

When Stradling suggested that they shoot the film in color and print it in black and white, Nichols fired him. Nichols then hired cinematographer Haskell Wexler to replace him. While Wexler's experience was mainly on smaller films and documentaries, he was very comfortable working with black and white and believed that he would be able to capture the specific look that Nichols wanted on film.

According to O'Steen, Nichols would have preferred to have someone else from the outside cutting the film, but he was obligated to use a Warner Bros. But he was still dead set against me. Nichols wanted to use a lot of overlapping dialogue in Virginia Woolf , which was considered "against the rules" of movie making at the time, and most editors were uncomfortable with the idea.

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However, O'Steen was not. Most editors would butt the lines together as close as possible or they would loop both actors and then put their lines on separate tracks whenever they mixed it. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and countless other creative exercises. Many of the activities encourage students to interact with each other, be creative and think "outside of the box," and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying.

Fun activities are a great way to keep students interested and engaged while still providing a deeper understanding of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Students should have a full understanding of the unit material in order to answer these questions. They often include multiple parts of the work and ask for a thorough analysis of the overall text. They nearly always require a substantial response.

Essay responses are typically expected to be one or more page s and consist of multiple paragraphs, although it is possible to write answers more briefly. These essays are designed to challenge a student's understanding of the broad points in a work, interactions among the characters, and main points and themes of the text.

But, they also cover many of the other issues specific to the work and to the world today. The 60 Short Essay Questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The short essay questions evaluate not only whether students have read the material, but also how well they understand and can apply it.

They require more thought than multiple choice questions, but are shorter than the essay questions. The Multiple Choice Questions in this lesson plan will test a student's recall and understanding of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Use these questions for quizzes, homework assignments or tests.

The questions are broken out into sections, so they focus on specific chapters within Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This allows you to test and review the book as you proceed through the unit. Typically, there are questions per chapter, act or section. Use the Oral Reading Evaluation Form when students are reading aloud in class. Pass the forms out before you assign reading, so students will know what to expect. You can use the forms to provide general feedback on audibility, pronunciation, articulation, expression and rate of speech. You can use this form to grade students, or simply comment on their progress.

Use the Writing Evaluation Form when you're grading student essays. This will help you establish uniform criteria for grading essays even though students may be writing about different aspects of the material. By following this form you will be able to evaluate the thesis, organization, supporting arguments, paragraph transitions, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. They pull questions from the multiple choice and short essay sections, the character and object descriptions, and the chapter abstracts to create worksheets that can be used for pop quizzes, in-class assignments and homework.

Periodic homework assignments and quizzes are a great way to encourage students to stay on top of their assigned reading.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

They can also help you determine which concepts and ideas your class grasps and which they need more guidance on. By pulling from the different sections of the lesson plan, quizzes and homework assignments offer a comprehensive review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Use the Test Summary page to determine which pre-made test is most relevant to your students' learning styles. This lesson plan provides both full unit tests and mid-unit tests.

You can choose from several tests that include differing combinations of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, short essay questions, full essay questions, character and object matching, etc.

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