Jim Coughenour's Reviews > Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“George, fix those kids a drink.” My favorite line in the play (garbled no doubt in memory).

This book was a gift, not something I’d have picked up for myself – so a double surprise in a way. I enjoyed it throughout. Details about the reclusive Edward Albee and the 1950s art scene in the Village, then the play’s debut on Broadway, then on to the celebrated movie directed by Mike Nichols starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Shattering taboos at the time, the play is now a period piece, still delectable for its razor-sharp dialogue, as savage and witty as the plays of Oscar Wilde or Joe Orton. Gefter moves us swiftly through mounds of historical anecdote and concludes with a surprising meditation on marriage in modern film. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny and even at its slow points Gefter kept me interested.

One for fans and film buffs obviously. Old Hollywood etc. You know who you are.

Honey:
Oh, I don’t know, a little brandy maybe. “Never mix, never worry!”

George:
Martha? Rubbing alcohol for you?

Martha:
Sure! “Never mix, never worry!”