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ANIKÓ LUKÁCS
HUMILIATE THE HOST
The overture to “cruel games” is Humiliate the Host, which can be divided
into three smaller games. Of these, the first two are not named — I will refer
to them as The Story of Our Boxing Match and The Fall of George, the Heir to the
Throne, while the third one is named after George, the Book-mentioner. One
of the most important features of Humiliate the Host is that it is primarily
determined as being Martha’s game (she plays the role of the game master) and
is directed exclusively against George. The three phases of the game give rise
to three different variations of humiliation, during which Martha attacks her
husband with increasing cruelty, shredding George’s former self, which was
legitimate in the preliminal stage.**
During the first game, Martha tells the story of their boxing match twenty
years ago when she accidentally knocked out George with a right hook while
joking around, so that he fell into a blueberry bush. Humiliated by his physical
weakness, George becomes the underdog in the scene, as Martha, by sum¬
moning the past, repeatedly punches her husband — this time not physically
but figuratively — and just like Daddy back then, there are witnesses to this
moment as well, increasing George’s sense of defenselessness. At the climax of
this scene, George leaves the room and returns with a rifle, points it at Martha’s
back, then pulls the trigger while Honey begins to scream: “POW!!! (Pop! From
the barrel of the gun blossoms a large red and yellow Chinese parasol.) |...] You're
dead! Pow! You’re dead!”*> — George says, “killing” his wife in a symbolical
way. The strong tension in The Story of our Boxing Match is thus extinguished
by a comical closure, which gives way to some relief and laughter, while also
stimulating the characters’ impulses.
Martha’s statement that the above incident left an indelible mark on their
lives is remarkable given the path leading to the second part of the game, and
George certainly thinks so: he blames his lack of accomplishments on it.*° The
Fall of George, the Heir to the Throne already focusses on this failure, continu¬
ing the humiliation in which Martha talks extensively to Nick and Honey about
her contempt for her husband and calls him “a great ... big ... fat ... FLOP!”.°”
This is the point where, for the first time, one of the characters in the play
crosses the line of verbal insults into the realm of physical aggression (Mar¬
tha’s pretend murder with the toy rifle should be categorized as the former,
as the intent there is expressed verbally). As a result of another humiliation,
34 “GEORGE: [...] Do you think I like having ... whatever-it-is [...] tearing me down; You can sit
there in that chair of yours, you can sit there with the gin running out of your mouth, and
you can humiliate me, you can tear me apart ... ALL NIGHT ... and that’s perfectly all right
.. that’s O.K. ...” (bold highlighting: Aniké Lukacs); Albee: Ibid., 152.
35 Ibid., 57.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., 84.
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