Legendary playwright Edward Albee dies at 88

BetteDavisEyes · Sep 16, 2016

Legendary playwright Edward Albee dead at 88
Albee won 3 Pulitzers

By SANDRA GONZALEZ , CNN

Posted: 8:58 PM, September 16, 2016
Updated: 9:17 PM, September 16, 2016

(CNN) - Legendary playwright Edward Albee, widely considered one of the greats of his generation, has died at the age of 88, according to his personal assistant Jakob Holder.

Albee, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, died Friday afternoon at his home in Montauk, New York. Albee died after a short illness, according to Holder...

http://www.clickondetroit.com/entertainment/legendary-playwright-edward-albee-dead-at-88

Lilibet · Sep 16, 2016

Quotes from a lengthy article in the NY Times...

Mr. Albee became known as an exemplar of a new, convention-defying strain of playwriting. In an article in The Times with the headline “Dramatists Deny Nihilistic Trend,” Mr. Albee espoused the view that would become his credo: that theatergoers should be challenged to confront situations and ideas that lie outside their comfort zones.

Albee certainly achieved that goal. I remember reading "The Zoo Story" in college in the mid '60's. My soon-to-be husband was a Dramatic Arts major and played one of the parts in an acting class. It was a very disturbing play. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" was even more disturbing. Definitely outside my comfort zone. But unforgettable 50 years later.

Albee's view of his role as a playwright was interesting:

Mr. Albee explained himself as a kind of herald, perhaps a modern Cassandra warning the theatergoer of inevitable personal calamity.
“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 the 1991 Times interview. “I find most people spend too much time living as if they’re never going to die.”
He wrote, he said, with a sense of responsibility; “All plays, if they’re any good, are constructed as correctives,” he told The Guardian in 2004. “That’s the job of the writer. Holding that mirror up to people. We’re not merely decorative, pleasant and safe.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/a...f-a-desperate-generation-dies-at-88.html?_r=0

Legendary playwright Edward Albee dies at 88

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