From its debut in 1962, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a wild success and a cultural lightning rod. The play transpires over one long, boozy night, laying bare the lies, compromises, and scalding love that have sustained a middle-aged couple through decades of marriage. It scandalised critics but magnetised audiences.
Then, Hollywood took a colossal gamble on Albee’s sophisticated play and won. Co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the sensational 1966 film won five Oscars. How this scorching play became a movie classic-surviving censorship attempts, its creators’ inexperience, and its stars’ own tumultuous marriage, is one of the most riveting stories in all of cinema.
Acclaimed author Philip Gefter traces Woolf from its hushed origins in Greenwich Village, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens and permanent place in the canon of cinematic marriages. He explores how two couples – one fictional, one all too real – brought to light our most deeply held myths about relationships, sex, family, and, against all odds, love.