Thoughts on Woolf

A lot has happened since I last looked at this play but I will try to discuss my opinions as well as I can remember.  Overall, I did enjoy the play as a whole.  I thought that it was entertaining, and even LOL-worthy at some points.  However, there were some parts that I found to be redundant and unnecessary, but I suppose that is more to do with the genre than the actual play itself.  In my opinion, pieces of literature that fall under the category of "absurd" tend to be more effective as shorter works.  As they grow in length, I think that the audience begins to lose interest and the absurdity becomes more annoying than humorous.  For example, I found Tartuffe and the other play that we read in class (the one with the potted plants) more entertaining as a whole than Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.  I'm not saying that Edward Albee was unsuccessful in portraying the absurd squabbles of society, though.  On the contrary, he was so successful that the reader gradually transitions from seeing the banter between George and Martha as comical to seeing it as annoying towards the end.  

Now that I think about it, though, I'm not sure if this play can be compared to the previous two that we read in class.  Although it belongs in the same genre, there were some significant differences that I noticed.  For example, Albee's play contains much more character development than the other two.  The audience is entreated to multiple sides of each of the four characters (George, Martha, Nick, and Honey).  For example, although George initially appears as self-assured and successful, the audience learns that he is really insecure and cynical.  Martha is a boisterous woman for sure, but she is shaken so considerably when George "kills" their son that you can't help feeling sympathetic as a reader.  As the night progresses, Nick reveals that he is not the polite young man that he appears to be but instead a manipulative and arrogant monster.  Of all the characters, Honey is the most simple character.  Not only mentally, but in a matter of behavior as well.  I really didn't notice any major personality traits that she tried to keep hidden from the rest.  She seemed to be honest and straight-forward even before she was drunk.  Nevertheless, it is clear how these characters differ greatly from those in the other two plays.  In Tartuffe, there was very little character development or progression.  Orgon is a fool, Tartuffe is evil, and Dorine is reasonable.  I didn't notice these characters really changing or exhibiting more complex qualities throughout the play.  I guess that when writing absurd pieces you are forced to make a trade-off at some point.  Longer pieces can allow for more character development, but may become less engaging to the audience.  Short pieces really don't give the audience a chance to lose interest but at the same time contain static characters.