Edward Albee (1928–2016,) fully Edward Franklin Albee III, was hailed as the most significant American playwright of his generation. He was initially associated with the Theatre of the Absurd, but he is best known for the masterpiece of marital disharmony Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962.)
Born in Washington, D.C., Albee was adopted by a wealthy theatre-owning family and educated in Connecticut. His play The Zoo Story (1958) was influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd and began his attack on the complacency of the American middle class. He continued this in other one-act plays, such as The American Dream (1960.)
Albee had enormous success with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962, filmed 1966,) which displays slashing insight and caustic wit in its gruesome portrayal of a married life built on illusions. Many American theatre critics (of whom Albee had a famously low opinion) denounced the bizarrely plotted Tiny Alice (1964.)
Albee’s works include A Delicate Balance (1966) and Seascape (1975,) which won the Pulitzer. His later plays, such as the brilliant parable The Man Who Had Three Arms (1982,) again displayed great poetic intelligence and masterly dialogue but were not commercially successful.
Albee’s dramatizations include Malcolm (1965) and Lolita (1981.) He had little success with his later plays until Three Tall Women (1991; Pulitzer) revived his career. Albee won a Tony lifetime achievement award in 2005, following an acclaimed Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Edward Albee
Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.
—Edward Albee
Topics: Consequences
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.
—Edward Albee
Topics: Reality, Accomplishment, Writing
The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.
—Edward Albee
Topics: Creativity
You gotta have a swine to show you where the truffles are.
—Edward Albee
The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not
—Edward Albee
Topics: Criticism
I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.
—Edward Albee
Topics: Humor
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