Eva Alikaj will be Martha in “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf”, a play by Edward Albee, after another well-known Albanian actress turned it down.
After a series of roles together in theater and cinema, Luiza Xhuvani and Ndri読 Xhepa were thought to co-star again in Edward Albee’s “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf”. But because of her political engagements (Xhuvani has been elected as a member of parliament) she plans to be off the stage for a while. Martha’s role will now be played by Eva Alikaj, also seen in many plays and movies as Xhepa’s partner. The then-controversial play (because of the use of sexual themes) has traveled the world during these four decades and now finally will be shown on the stage of the National Theater by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) director Kushtrim Bekteshi, in the beginning of October.
Eva Alikaj flew from Vienna and has immediately started to rehearse. She is Martha, a fifty-year old woman involved in a tempestuous relationship with her husband George played by Ndri読 Xhepa. Martha drives most the action of the play by launching assault after assault on her husband George. It looks like Martha hates herself so much that it’s impossible for her to accept love from another person. No wonder she acts the way she does. She’s trapped in a tragic web of love and hate from which there seems to be no escape. The couple interacts with another younger couple whom they continuously call “kids”. Nick is played by Helidon Fino and Honey by Eftiola La謡j.
The play
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” was written by the American playwright Edward Albee in the beginning of the sixties. With the Broadway premiere of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962, Albee went from promising young playwright to great American dramatist, and was perceived by many as having joined the ranks of Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams.
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” didn’t go off without controversy, though. Some audience members were shocked by its strong language and taboo sexual references. If you put the play on HBO today, it would probably seem tame, but in the early ’60s it was accused of being perverse and dirty minded. The script won the vote for the Pulitzer Prize, but some thought it was just too controversial to be given the prestigious award. It was said that the play didn’t present a wholesome image of America. As a result of the controversy, no one received the Pulitzer for Drama that year. This struck half of the Pulitzer panel as being so wrong that they resigned in protest.
George and Martha are named after George and Martha Washington, making them symbolic of America as a whole. So, if the “American Dream” is about having a happy stable family, what does it say to have Albee’s George and Martha represent all Americans? They’re not even trying to pretend they’re happy, and they sure aren’t stable. Perhaps, Albee is suggesting that there may just be a lot of nastiness behind that sitcom sheen. The fact that the most meaningful connection between them (their son) is imaginary seems to suggest that perhaps the entire American Dream itself is really just an unattainable illusion.
