SOURCE: A review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in Nation, Vol. 195, No. 13, October 27, 1962, pp. 273-74.

In the following excerpt, Clurman acknowledges Albee's technical skill, but faults his characterizations in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as one-dimensional.

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?… is packed with talent…. It may well prove the best of the season. Its significance extends beyond the moment. In its faults as well as in its merits it deserves our close attention.

It has four characters: two couples. There is hardly a plot, little so called "action," but it moves or rather whirls on its own special axis. At first it seems to be a play about marital relations; as it proceeds one realizes that it aims to encompass much more. The author wants to "tell all," to say everything.

The middle-aged wife, Martha, torments her somewhat younger husband because he has failed...