A recent comment I ran across inspired me to give some further thought to this powerful play by Edward Albee, with the result that I have taken the liberty of writing a fourth act that, for all its brevity, lends a ring of truth that had heretofore been missing from the three-act play.

Now, please understand, I do not wish to knock this show. It is one of the greatest dramas in the history of the American stage. Albee finished it in 1962, and it won both the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for the 1963 Broadway season. It should have won a Pulitzer that year for drama, as well. The Pulitzer jury did, in fact, award the prize to this play, but the award’s board of governors overruled the jury on the grounds of censorship, so no such award was given in 1963.

I am glad to say that I have seen this drama twice: once as a play (not on Broadway, though) and once as a movie (starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis). Both performances were powerful and gripping throughout.

For those who may not be familiar with the play, it takes place on the campus of a college in the eastern part of the United States, in the living room of  George, an associate professor of history, and his already-very-drunk wife, Martha, who is also the daughter of the university’s president. They have invited a younger faculty couple (Nick and Honey) in for a “nightcap.”

What follows is a rambling, almost non-stop barrage of invective between George and Martha, into which the younger couple find themselves uncomfortably drawn. Of course, the precise dialogue among the four actors represents the playwright’s art at its finest, but there was one detail that could not escape my attention: almost all of the time when the performers are not running their mouths onstage, they are throwing down the booze. It would be uncanny how much liquor they all put away, if it were really liquor.

Yet, at the end of the third and, supposedly final act, all four of them seem as sharp-witted and articulate as they were from the opening bell. Mighty strange, says I.

So, in order to remedy that somewhat huge discrepancy, I have come up with my proposed fourth act for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Do not fret, this one will be far shorter than any of the three that precede it. You will be out of here in no time.

Act IV, Scene i

The act opens in the same old place, George and Martha’s living room. George, Nick and Honey are all seated. Martha is standing up, but barely.

MARTHA (to George): You lousy son of a bish, I never—

GEORGE (jumping up suddenly): Excuse me!  (Exits urgently, upstage)

NICK  (also jumps up): Me too. (Exits hurriedly, stage left)

HONEY (jumps up immediately afterward): Yeah, me too. (Exits on the double, stage right)

MARTHA: Hey! I’m not done talkin’! Whereya think you’re… (She collapses onto the floor and lands on her back.)

Blackout

Act IV, Scene ii

The scene opens with Martha alone, still on the floor, twitching violently.

MARTHA: Ip, ip, ip…..ip, ip!

NICK (Offstage left):  HWAAAALP! Oh, Lordy, sweet Jesus! GAAAAAH!

HONEY (Offstage right): HWAAAALP! Take me now, God! Take me now! WHOOP!

GEORGE (Offstage, center): HWAAAALP! UK! UK! UK! HWAAAALP!

Martha, by this time has ceased twitching and is lying as still as a corpse.

Final Curtin

There, now, wasn’t that a more believable ending?…And far more artistic, if you ask me.