The first British publication of a brilliant new Albee play If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive? In THE PLAY ABOUT THE BABY, a young couple who are madly in love with each other, have a child - the perfect family - that is, until an older couple steal the baby. Through a series of mind games and manipulations, they call into question both couples' sense of reality and fiction, joy and sorrow in this devastating black comedy which invites parallels with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. "You're unlikely to find a more intriguingly structured, provocative or entertaining new play" - Curtain Up "The Play about the Baby rockets into that special corner of theatre heaven where words shoot off like fireworks into dazzling patterns and hues" - New York Times
Winner of three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama during his long and distinguished career, Edward Albee is one of America's preeminent playwrights. "The Play About the Baby" is an absurdist black comedy, reminiscent of burlesque in its high spirits and banter, that grapples with such issues as reality and the games we play to define it, the ambiguity of existence, and the agonizing bonds between parents and children. A fresh young couple-Boy and Girl-have a new baby, whom an older couple-Man and Woman-have come to steal. Why? Because, as Man says, "If you don't have the wound of a broken heart, how can you know you're alive?" Brutal loss-the loss of a child or childhood self-has been a recurring Albee theme, and Ben Brantley of the "New York Times" summed up the critical reaction to "The Play About the Baby" when he called it a "funny, harrowing dramatic fable . . . as explicit and concise a statement of what Mr. Albee believes as he is ever likely to deliver."
When you emerge from this impish comic playwright's glittering tribute to Molière, written entirely in verse, your head will be so dizzy with syncopated rhyme that you'll almost expect to find yourself speaking and thinking in chiming couplets...[Ives] add The truism that families come in all shapes and sizes is illuminated with haunting beauty...in this exquisitely wrought comedy-drama...a piercing portrait of the contemporary social architecture, in which the distance between people can be widened or collaps
THE STORY: By turns funny, mysterious and disturbing, THE PLAY ABOUT THE BABY concerns a young couple who have just had a baby, and the strange turn of events that transpire when they are visited by an older man and woman.
This volume contains the eight plays written by Albee during his first decade as a playwright, from 1958 to 1965. These range from the four one-act plays with which he exploded on the New York theatre scene in 1958-59 to his early masterpiece 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' in 1961-62.
In 1960, Edward Albee electrified the theater world with the American premiere of The Zoo Story, and followed it two years later with his extraordinary first Broadway play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Proclaimed as the playwright of his generation, he went on to win three Pulitzer Prizes for his searing and innovative plays. Mel Gussow, author, critic, and cultural writer for The New York Times, has known Albee and followed his career since its inception, and in this fascinating biography he creates a compelling firsthand portrait of a complex genius. The book describes Albee's life as the adopted child of rich, unloving parents and covers the highs and lows of his career. A core myth of Albee's life, perpetuated by the playwright, is that The Zoo Story was his first play, written as a thirtieth birthday present to himself. As Gussow relates, Albee has been writing since adolescence, and through close analysis the author traces the genesis of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, and other plays. After his early triumphs, Albee endured years of critical neglect and public disfavor. Overcoming artistic and personal difficulties, he returned in 1994 with Three Tall Women. In this prizewinning play he came to terms with the towering figure of his mother, the woman who dominated so much of his early life. With frankness and critical acumen, and drawing on extensive conversations with the playwright, Gussow offers fresh insights into Albee's life. At the same time he provides vivid portraits of Albee's relationships with the people who have been closest to him, including William Flanagan (his first mentor), Thornton Wilder, Richard Barr, John Steinbeck, Alan Schneider, John Gielgud, and his leading ladies, Uta Hagen, Colleen Dewhurst, Irene Worth, Myra Carter, Elaine Stritch, Marian Seldes, and Maggie Smith. And then there are, most famously, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who starred in Mike Nichols's acclaimed film version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The book places Albee in context as a playwright who inspired writers as diverse as John Guare and Sam Shepard, and as a teacher and champion of human rights. Edward Albee: A Singular Journey is rich with colorful details about this uniquely American life. It also contains previously unpublished photographs and letters from and to Albee. It is the essential book about one of the major artists of the American theater.
THE STORIES: COUNTING THE WAYS. In a series of blackout sketches, He and She probe into the nature of their love for one another. Long married, but aware that time has wrought changes in their relationship, the two spar and thrust at each other
THE STORY: Jack comes home from a middling day at the office to quickly announce to his wife, Gillian, that he is leaving her. Suspecting for some time a midlife crisis, Gillian goads Jack about this announcement, forcing him to try it again--going
New York sculptor Louise Nevelson's life was marked by intrepid triumphs and deep inner turmoil. Both her public accomplishments and private emotional conflicts are thoroughly examined by an unnamed interviewer who questions the posthumous Nevelson with an unabashed scrutiny. The result is a touching, humorous, and honest tribute to a woman who was a pioneer for free-thinking females everywhere, but also stood on her own as one of the 20th century's greatest artistic minds.
"Powerful, probing, vivid and arresting, these eight plays -- the personal choices of Edward Albee -- are together for the first time in this exclusive members' edition."--The dust-jacket front flap
