A lot of criticism has greeted the Albee estate’s decision to withhold the rights to perform Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from a tiny theater in Portland that had cast a black actor as Nick. Thing is, though realism (the play is set in 1960s New England) was Albee’s stated rationale, he did not consider Virginia Woolf entirely naturalistic at first, and he did once permit a black Martha. What changed? Mark Harris has a theory – and a suggestion.