Marriage Play

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marriage Play is a drama for two actors by Edward Albee.

The play opens with a blow. Jack enters home and informs his wife, that after thirty years of being married to her he intends to leave. Gillian does not react as he would expect and therefore he enters three times more. Answers of Gillian make him angry. Finally he collapses on a chair. After expressing his frustration and insecurity, he finds out that Gillian keeps critical notes on their lovemaking and gets even more paralyzed.

Gillian and Jack, like George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, play ritual games to express and contain their sense of life-disappointment. In the middle of the play, the couple even starts fighting with each other, clawing, punching and biting, even after they fall on the floor.

Exhausted by the fighting, they start to talk about the memorable times it their life. However, Gillian is determined to return the previous insults and tells Jack he is not the only one who was unfaithful to his partner.

Plays by Edward Albee

The Zoo Story | The Death of Bessie Smith | The Sandbox | Fam and Yam | The American Dream | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | The Ballad of the Sad Cafe | Tiny Alice | Malcolm | A Delicate Balance | Everything in the Garden | Box | Sandbox | All Over | Seascape | Listening | Counting the Ways | The Lady From Dubuque | Lolita | The Man Who Had Three Arms | Finding the Sun | Marriage Play | Three Tall Women | The Lorca Play | Fragments | The Play About the Baby | The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? | Occupant | Peter & Jerry