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MACMILLAN MODERN DRAMATISTS Macmillan Modern Dramatists Series Editors: Bruce King and Adele King

Published titles

Reed Anderson, Federico Garcia Lorca Eugene Benson, J. M. Synge Renate Benson, German Expressionist Normand , Eugene O'Neill Michael Billington, Roger Boxill, John Bull, New British Political Dramatists Neil Carson, Maurice Charney, Joe Orton Ruby Cohn, New American Dramatists, 1960-1980 Bernard F. Dukore, American Dramatists, 1918-1945 Bernard F. Dukore, Arthur Ganz, James Gibbs, Wole Soyinka Frances Gray, John Arden Julian Hilton, Georg Buchner David Hirst, Edward Bond Helene Keyssar, Feminist Theatre Bettina L. Knapp, French Theatre 1918-1939 Charles Lyons, Gerry McCarthy, Jan McDonald, The New Drama 1900-1914 Susan Bassnett-McGuire, Luigi Pirandello Margery Morgan, Leonard C. Pronko, Eugene Labiche and Georges Feydeau Jeanette L. Savona, Claude Schumacher, Alfred J arry and Guillaume Apollinaire Laurence Senelick, Theodore Shank, American Alternative Theatre James Simmons, Sean O'Casey David Thomas, Henrick Ibsen Dennis Walder, Thomas Whitaker, Nick Worrall, Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev Katharine Worth, Oscar Wilde MACMILLAN MODERN DRAMATISTS EDWARD ALBEE

Gerry McCarthy Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts University of Birmingham

M MACMILLAN © Gerry McCarthy 1987 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of ths publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1987

Published by Higher and Further Education Division MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTO Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS and Companies and representatives throughout the world

Typeset by Wessex Typesetters (Division of The Eastern Press Ltd) Frome, Somerset British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data McCarthy, Gerry Edward Albee.-(Macmillan modern dramatists) 1. Albee, Edward-Criticism and interpretation I. Title 812' .54 PS3551.L25Z1

ISBN 978-0-333-30121-0 ISBN 978-1-349-18660-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18660-0 For Moira Contents

List of Plates viii Acknowledgements x Editors' Preface xi 1. Introduction 1 2 Albee on Theatre 13 3 Albee in the Theatre: ; Box and 29 Quotations from Chairman Mao; Intimate Theatre 4 Who's Afraid of Woolf? 59 5 A Delicate Balance 79 6 98 7 J 15 8 Hermetic Albee: Listening 129 9 The Lady from Dubuque 147 Notes 163 Bibliography 165 ~~ m

vii List of Plates

1. at The Jazz Gallery, NYC, 1961. Photograph © Alix Jeffry, Harvard Theatre Collection. 2. The 1961 production of The directed by at The York Playhouse with Ben Piazza and Susie Bond. Photograph © Alix Jeffry, Harvard Theatre Collection. 3. Alan Schneider's 1961 Broadway production of Who's Afraid of ? with Arthur Hill and . Photograph © Alix Jeffry, Harvard Theatre Collection. 4. ThefinalpiettHrom Tiny Alice in 1964, with and . Photograph © Alix Jeffry, Harvard Theatre Collection. 5. A Delicate Balance at the Martin Beck Theatre, NYC, in 1966. Performers (1. to r.) are , Rosemary Murphy, Carmen Matthews, , and . Photograph © Alix Jeffry, Harvard Theatre Collection. 6. Jessica Tandy as The Wife in All Over with Betty Fields

viii List of Plates and Neil Fitzgerald (Martin Beck Theatre 1971). Photograph © Martha Swope. 7. Fred Voelpel's costumes for Albee's 1975 production of Seascape at the Sam S. Shubert Theatre, NYC. Photograph courtesy Billy Rose Theatre Collection. 8. and Jo Musante in The Lady from Dubuque directed by Alan Schneider in 1980. Photograph © Martha Swope.

The author and publishers are grateful to copyright holders for permission to reproduce photographs.

ix Acknowledgements

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Edward Albee and Atheneum for excerpts from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf!, copyright © 1962 Edward Albee; A Delicate Balance, copyright © 1966 Edward Albee; All Over, copyright © 1971 Edward Albee; Seascape, copyright © 1975 Edward Albee; Listening, copyright © 1975, 1977 Edward Albee; and The Lady from Dubuque, copyright © 1977, 1980 Edward Albee. Reproduced with the permission of Atheneum Publishers. Edward Albee and Jonathan Cape for permission to reproduce excerpts from The Death of , Zoo Story and The Sandbox, all copyright © 1960 Edward Albee, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The Putnam Publishing Group for excerpts from The Sandbox, The Death of Besse Smith and Zoo Story from The Plays: Volume 1 by Edward Albee, copyright © 1981 Edward Albee. Alix Jeffry, the Harvard Theatre Collection, Martha Swope and the for permission to reproduce photographs from productions of Albee plays.

x Editors' Preface

The Macmillan Modern Dramatists is an international series of introductions to major and significant nineteenth and twentieth-century dramatists, movements and new forms of drama in Europe, Great Britain, America and new nations such as Nigeria and Trinidad. Besides new studies of great and influential dramatists of the past, the series includes volumes on contemporary authors, recent trends in the theatre and on many dramatists, such as writers of farce, who have created theatre 'classics' while being neglected by literary criticism. The volumes in the series devoted to individual dramatists include a biography, a survey of the plays, and detailed analysis of the most significant plays, along with discussion, where relevant, of the political, social, historical and theatrical context. The authors of the volumes, who are involved with theatre as playwrights, directors, actors, teachers and critics, are concerned with the plays as theatre and discuss such matters as performance, character interpretation and staging, along with themes and contexts. BRUCE KING ADELE KING

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