The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Cambridge University Press, 7/21/2005
EAN 9780521542333, ISBN10: 0521542332

Paperback, 290 pages, 22.6 x 15.4 x 2.2 cm
Language: English

Edward Albee, perhaps best known for his acclaimed and infamous 1960s drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is one of America's greatest living playwrights. Now in his seventies, he is still writing challenging, award-winning dramas. This collection of essays on Albee, which includes contributions from the leading commentators on Albee's work, brings fresh critical insights to bear by exploring the full scope of the playwright's career, from his 1959 breakthrough with The Zoo Story to his recent Broadway success, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2002). The contributors include scholars of both theatre and English literature, and the essays thus consider the plays both as literary texts and as performed drama. The collection considers a number of Albee's lesser-known and neglected works, provides a comprehensive introduction and overview, and includes an exclusive, original interview with Mr Albee, on topics spanning his whole career.

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Notes on the text
Chronology
1. Introduction
the man who had three lives Stephen Bottoms
2. Albee's early one-act plays
'A new American playwright from whom much is to be expected' Philip C. Kolin
3. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
toward the marrow Matthew Roudané
4. 'Withered age and stale custom'
marriage, diminution, and sex in Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, and Finding the Sun John M. Clum
5. Albee's 3 1/2
the Pulitzer plays Thomas P. Adler
6. Albee's threnodies
Box-Mao-Box, All Over, The Lady from Dubuque, and Three Tall Women Brenda Murphy
7. Minding the play
thought and feeling in Albee's 'hermetic' works Gerry McCarthy
8. Albee's monster children
adaptations and confrontations Stephen Bottoms
9. 'Better alert than numb'
Albee since the eighties Christopher Bigsby
10. Albee stages Marriage Play
cascading action, audience taste, and dramatic paradox Rakesh H. Solomon
11. 'Playing the cloud circuit'
Albee's vaudeville show Linda Ben-Zvi
12. Albee's The Goat
rethinking tragedy for the 21st century J. Ellen Gainor
13. 'Words
words … They're such a pleasure' (An Afterword) Ruby Cohn
14. Borrowed time
an interview with Edward Albee Stephen Bottoms
Notes on further reading
Select bibliography
Index.

'... highly recommended for all libraries acquiring materials on literature and the theatre in English.' Reference Reviews