This is the point where George finally places his foot down and claims victory over Martha by stop playing the perfect family game that they have been playing all along. He then breaks down all the illusion and facade that the couple have lived with by “killing” their son that forces Martha to face the reality. If this marriage reality is what Martha’s trying to escape from through the facade of her aggression and the imaginary child, it ties in to the entire concept of who is afraid of Virginia Woolf -a feminist writer whose writing dealt with the unrevealing of reality and truth of social life, on Martha’s biggest fear of facing the reality of her marriage without any illusion and pretense.
In the recent National Theater production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In London, director James Macdonald heightened the sense of purgation at the end of the play. Not only that Albee’s stage direction to allow all the last dialogues to be performed softly and slowly, Macdonald staged a dark stage with light coming in only from a large window on stage left to mimic the sunrise. Not only that this physically introduce the end of the night for Martha and George, this lighting also symbolizes a clean slate for the couples to possibly reconvene and face the
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Unlike Mary Tyrone and Martha, excessive consumption and usage are no longer a protective device for Beverly but a necessity that allows him to keep going -that is until it is no longer tolerable and drives him to commit suicide. In contrary, Violet’s addiction serves the same purpose as Mary’s: to escape her reality. Later in the play, it is revealed that, as the matriarch, Violet holds the Westons’ darkest secret such as Beverly’s lovechild with her sister, Mattie Fae. Unlike Barbara and her husband Bill, Violet is unable to push Beverly away from her simply for being selfish and her materialistic