RIP Edward Albee

The playwright Edward Albee died today (Sept. 16, 2016), at the age of 88. The New York Times (9/16/16) calls him the “playwright of a desperate generation.” Albee said about his own plays that they were about “people missing the boat,…coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done.” His most famous play was the wrenching story of a bitterly confrontational marriage, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (later made into the unforgettable 1966 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton). Other plays included “The Zoo Story” and “A Delicate Balance.” Although I don’t think I have read his plays since college, and have only attended his plays in the theater once or twice over the years, I have always admired Albee’s work, and he has been a huge presence on the arts scene for fifty-plus years. Albee’s goal, he said, was for his audiences to be “challenged to confront situations and ideas outside their comfort zone,” and that he surely achieved.