Edward Albee, a famous American playwright, whose works resembled realism in the modern society, died at the age of 88 in NY, on Friday.
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He died in his home on Friday following a short illness, according to his personal assistant.
It was “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, his first full-length play, that brought him the most notoriety.
Albee influenced a generation of playwrights and continued experimenting into his later years.
Sharp-tongued humour and dark themes were the hallmarks of Albee’s style. His masterwork was a controversial 1962 Broadway hit and later spawned an Oscar-winning 1966 film of the same name starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
On Twitter, actress Mia Farrow called Albee “one of the great” playwrights of our time, while fellow playwright Lynn Nottage said she would “miss his wit, irreverence and wisdom”. “I am a writer who happens to be gay”, he said, somewhat ironically, while accepting an award for pioneering LGBT writers and publishers. He won Pulitzers for A Delicate Balance, All Over, and Three Tall Women.
With Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and 1964’s Tiny Alice, Albee shook up a Broadway that had been dominated by Tennessee Williams, Miller and their intellectual disciples. But others expressed sentiments similar to Albee’s, such as Lea DeLaria, who hosted that year’s ceremony. But Albee, at a young age, shifted to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village to pursue his dream.
His wealthy father was the son of vaudeville theater magnate Edward Franklin Albee II.
Edward Albee with Kathleen Turner in Washington in 2011.
Albee’s snub and “Virginia Woolf’s” losses are all the more awful considering history’s ultimate judgment.
Albee for many years taught courses in playwriting at the University of Houston and helped fund writers through his Montauk, Long Island, arts colony.
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As for himself, Albee had “no enthusiasm whatever about dying, ” he told the Times as he neared 80. “Dying strikes me as being a great waste of time”.
