Edward Albee RIP

[ejp626]

Obituary in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/16/edward-albee-dies-playwright-whos-afraid-virginia-woolf

One of the last major playwrights, and certainly one of the last major playwrights to have the courage to write plays where you come out of the play and wonder "what was that actually all about?"  He and Harold Pinter wrote some of the most challenging works of the 20th Century.  Sometimes it didn't work -- I hated The Goat or Who is Sylvia, and I thought The Play About the Baby was a retread of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  But when it did -- wow.

[fasstrack]

Well, he also had the courage to be openly gay way before that was acceptable, And 88 years is a hell of a run for anybody, no?

RIP,,,

 

[BillF]

Round about 1960 when I was 20 I was very taken by the culture of hip. There was jazz, of course, but also John Cassavetes's film Shadows and Jack Gelber's play The Connection. Right into this category fitted Albee's The Zoo Story which was a huge influence, and a very fine little play, too

P.S. Have just discovered in my record collection a vinyl album on Spoken Arts called Mark Richman & William Daniels in The Zoo Story by Edward Albee. Must give it a replay!

Edited September 17, 2016 by BillF

[Hardbopjazz]

R.I.P. Edward. 

[fasstrack]

http://www.believermag.com/issues/201309/?read=interview_albee

[JSngry]

Did he just retire at some point, stop writing?

RIP, for sure.

[ejp626]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Did he just retire at some point, stop writing?

RIP, for sure.

He certainly slowed down around 2005, when his long-time partner died.  He did complete Me, Myself and I in 2007, and he wrote an expanded version of The Zoo Story around that time as well.  That seems to be his last completed work, though we may find he had some unfinished scripts that will be published down the road. 

Still, reasonably active for someone who would have been close to 80 at that time.