The Drama of 'Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf'?

Many of us who grew up in America’s middle-class suburbs of the 1950s and ’60s rarely experienced the ideal families encountered on television sitcoms—the Cleavers, Petries, and Father Knows Bests who just didn’t suffer serious emotional conflicts beyond minor disagreements about redecorating the den or locating a misplaced homework assignment. Where were all those wise and always-patient dads who hung around the living room with a tidily unfolded newspaper? Or the mothers who wore pearls in the kitchen while cooking meat loaf? Most chaotic homes, schools, and neighborhoods just didn’t match up with these well-regulated and geometrically laid-out open-plan kitchens and playgrounds.