Edward Albee, the three-time Pulitzer Prize victor who ushered in a new era of American drama with such plays as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Zoo Story, Three Tall Women and A Delicate Balance, has died.
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His provocative and often unforgiving takes on life in the United States earned him a reputation as one of the great American dramatists.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was adapted into a film in 1966 starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. “Whatever theatrical revolution had started in England and France had finally hit America”, he wrote in 1994 in a program for a London production of Albee’s “Three Tall Women“. I am not a gay writer. The first, in 2005, starred Kathleen Turner and a Tony-winning Bill Irwin, and the second, in 2012, featured Amy Morton and Tracy Letts and took home another Best Leading Actor Tony and the prize for Best Revival.
Adina Porter wrote on Twitter: “Edward Albee & THANK YOU for sharing your genius with we mortals”.
Although the stage version was selected by a Pulitzer Prize jury for the 1963 drama award, the Pulitzer advisory board overruled the jurors because of the play’s controversial nature.
Gay playwright Edward Albee has died at age 88.
Albee’s first play The Zoo Story set the tone for much that followed although his writing would become increasingly more nuanced, exchanging the confrontational conceit of the absurd for a more emotionally probing exploration of contemporary relationships.
“I think if a writer gets ideas, you’ve got to get them out of your head”, he said.
Albee was part of a generation of dramatists that included Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
Albee was a giant of American letters whose dark, cerebral plays about domestic life were the recipient of numerous awards.
Albee was born in 1928 and was adopted by a wealthy suburban NY couple.
Albee was honoured by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1996 for his lifetime contributions.
Albee’s longtime companion, sculptor Jonathan Thomas, died in 2005.
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As for himself, Albee had “no enthusiasm whatever about dying, ” he told the Times as he neared 80. “If it’s merely decorative, it’s a waste of time”. “I hope that my plays are useful in that sense, that they try to persuade people to live right on the edge dangerously and fully”.
