Edward Albee, considered as one of the great playwrights of his time, has died at the age of 88, at his home in Montauk, east of NY, his personal assistant Jackob Holder said on Friday (16 September). No cause of death was publicly revealed, although he had suffered from diabetes.
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf won him a Tony award in 1962 and was later adapted for a 1966 film featuring memorably combustible performances by then husband-and-wife team Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
He went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama three times for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975) and Three Tall Women (1994) and returned to Broadway in the 2001/2 season with The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? which took home the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play despite not winning over numerous critics.
Born in 1928, he was adopted by a wealthy suburban NY couple.
“All of my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done”, he said in a 1991 New York Times interview.
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.
The drama won five Tonys including best play, best actor (Arthur Hill) and best actress (Uta Hagen). Moreover, Albee directed the American premieres of a number of his own plays, beginning with Seascape. It has been revived on Broadway numerous times.
Albee brought back The Zoo Story to startling effect in 2007 with Edward Albees Peter and Jerry. The shattering encounter between two strangers in a park the aggressive, nearly psychotic Jerry and the bland, middle-age Peter that is The Zoo Story became the second act of the new work. A one-act work, it focused on a menacing park-bench encounter between two men. He received the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1980 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 1996. In The Goat or Who is Sylvia? the main character falls in love with a goat.
Albee’s companion, the sculptor Jonathan Thomas, passed away in 2005. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
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