God. A biography - George and Martha

In Edward Alby's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, an undercurrent of sexual tension bursts out as George's wife, Martha, takes a young, insurgent professor upstairs where this 'historical inevitability' 'ploughs this most pertinent wife', the daughter of the President of the college, Martha herself, the derisive wife of the failed artist, the sodden professor, George, who sits below and listens, and laughs till he cries. This game? 'Hump the hostess.' So says George.

But before this game it was 'get the guests.' The new professor of biology, 'blondie,' had earlier admitted to George that he was trapped into his marriage by the hysterical pregnancy of his 'slim-hipped' wife, 'a mousey thing.' George has maneuvered the four of them, this time to a moribund, local bar, to tell an allegory--'Blondie and his frau from out of the plain states came'--and reveals to them all his humiliating knowledge that mousey's 'puff went poof' and that it had been too late, for blondie was trapped. Overlaid on this is that mousey had told George that she was afraid of birthing. An abortion? Without Blondie's knowledge?

And before this? George was spurred to his game by an earlier one: Martha's 'humiliate the host.' Martha revels in twisting an old knife in front of the newcomers, that George, 'old swampy,' 'a regular bog in the history department,' had been shot down at the beginning of his career, a boy among men, by her dad, the president, his boss, in his one attempt as a novelist making art of some painful event from his past.

So, George dries his eyes and Martha confirms that blondie finished his business and is turned from houseboy to stud, but George does not relinquish the field. Even as Martha whines, 'No games, Georgie, it's games I don't like,' George shakes her up: 'I want you awake for this, baby.' Not over yet.

As they all sober up, in the wee hours, coarse, vulgar Martha ('Martha, you have ugly talents'), in a moment of breathtaking beauty, tells the story of their son, 'Sonny Jim', with George poking at her in the background, working her up to an ecstasy, only to tell her that Sonny Jim has been killed. Martha in a rage to George: 'You can't do that! You have no right!' The guests, dumbfounded, impotently try to calm her. Slowly it becomes clear that George and Martha could not conceive and had developed this elaborate fantasy, the most human, delicate, and emotional thing that passes between them, to compensate. Martha had broken the rules in a unusual moment of girl-talk with mousey: she let on about her and George's son, their private creation. Now he had to die.

Or perhaps it was all true afterall: 'truth and reality, can you tell the difference' they both say together to the outsiders. Nonetheless, the catharsis washes everyone clean. No more games. At least not for now.

But that's just a story. Why bring it up here?

If you follow the story of George and Martha, you might be able to follow what Miles brings you through in his rendering of the story of Abram/Abraham. An understory of sexual tension, about power of the sexual act and who owns it, full of mockery, rough ugly usage, point/counterpoint, and a final catharsis, the near slaughter of a son at his dad's hand.

Everyone, everything settles down, at least for now. Some point, somehow, has been made. All the characters can get on with life, a little mauled over, a little grown up, a little quieter. At least for now.