Piese de Eduard Albee

All Over
Family and mistress reveal their relationships to dying doctor as they gather around the deathbed
American Dream, The
Mommy and Daddy sit in a barren living room making small talk. Mommy, the domineering wife, is grappling with the thought of putting Grandma in a nursing home. Daddy, the long-suffering husband, could not care less. Grandma appears, lugging boxes of belongings, which she stacks by the door. Mommy and Daddy can't imagine what's in those boxes, but Grandma is well aware of Mommy's possible intentions. Mrs. Barker, the chairman of the women's club, arrives, not knowing why she is there. Is she there to take Grandma away? Apparently not. It all becomes evident when Grandma reveals to Mrs. Barker the story of the botched adoption of a "bumble of joy" twenty years ago by Mommy and Daddy. Mrs. Barker appears to have figured it out when Young Man enters. He's muscular, well-spoken, the answer to Mommy and Daddy's prayers: The American Dream. Grandma convinces him to assist in her master plan. She puts one over on everybody and escapes the absurdly realistic world which she finds so predictable.
Ballad Of The Sad Cafe, The
Amelia, the proprietor of the Sad Cafe, throws her new husband out of their bedroom on their wedding night. Torn between anger and desire the husband finally leaves town only to return some years later to find Amelia showering all her affection on a dwarf cousin who has come to live with her. At their first meeting the dwarf is hopelessly attracted to the husband. In turn, the husband moves back into the Sad Cafe, threatening to run away with the dwarf if Amelia objects. The day of reckoning soon arrives and the husband and wife meet to settle their differences with their bare hands.
Bartleby
A young law clerk resists all instructions and requests with the words, "I would prefer not to".
Box and Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung
The New Yorker, comments "The play opens with a recorded voice reciting a long and tiresome threnody on the human predicament and the degree to which art can serve as a solace as well as a spur . . . During the recital, the stage is empty except for a wooden framework of a large cube; the recital over, the cube is seen to contain a portion of a ship's deck, some deck chairs, and four people. One is Mao, who spends the rest of the evening wandering about the stage and the adjacent boxes and aisles, quoting his own deadly political cliches. Another is a raddled-looking old lady, who recites in a whining Middle Western singsong Will Carleton's celebrated ballad "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse.' In one of the deck chairs sits a minister, book in hand and blanket tucked cosily about his legs; never uttering a word, he listens with sympathy to a middle-aged lady's non-stop monologue about her dead husband, her ungrateful daughter, and her narrow escape from drowning. Mao and the raddled-looking old lady have nothing
Box-Mao-Box
A voice, offstage, comments on the human predicament and, in consequence, the effects of art.
Breakfast At Tiffany's
Comments: Was titled "Holly Golightly" during pre-Broadway try-out. Merrick closed the show in previews "rather than subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening" (his own words).
Counting The Ways
Man and woman weave verbal games as they explore their love for each other and explore their memories
Death Of Bessie Smith, The
Doctor and nurse relationship in hospital for whites in southern USA as the great black blues singer dies on being refused admission
Delicate Balance, A
Terror goes with suburban couple even when they move in with their best friends.
Dressed Like An Egg
Envy, In Faustus In Hell
Everything In The Garden
In George Oppenheimer's words: "As always with Mr. Albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. The scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. The only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. The action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. Then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party w
Fam And Yam
YAM (the young American playwright) has requested an interview with FAM (the famous American playwright). The interview begins as YAM clucks appreciatively over all the evidences of FAM's success-the paintings, the view, the luxury of his apartment. FAM endeavors to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand, the article for which YAM is gathering material. YAM responds-with a vengeance. As FAM swallows one glass of sherry after another, YAM proceeds to mount a vitriolic attack on the insidious commerciality of the Broadway theatre. FAM is enormously amused and fails to realize words are being put in his mouth. The interview ends, and YAM thanks his host for the "interview" which he intends to use as the basis for his article. FAM is struck-too late-by the realization of the trap into which his fatuousness has allowed him to be led. He turns ashen as his paintings frown, reel, tilt and crash down around him.
Finding The Sun
Running into each other at the beach, Cordelia and Abigail do all they can to hide their dislike for one another, probably because their husbands, Daniel and Benjamin, aren't doing so well at hiding the fact that they themselves were once in love before ever deciding to marry Cordelia and Abigail instead. Gertrude and Henden (Daniel and Cordelia's parents by previous marriages) play witness to their step-childrens' passions which inevitably excite their own, despite their age. Gertrude acts upon her lusty curiosity by investigating what she imagines to be a sexual relationship between Edmee and Fergus, a mother and son whom she meets at the beach that day. Henden, in his own time, approaches the sixteen-year-old Fergus and finds himself answering the boy's discomforting questions about the nature of Daniel and Benjamin's past relationship. All together, these chance meetings and forays into frankness offer a kaleidoscopic view of passion which spans all the ages of man and woman and all the varieties of love
Fragments: A Sit Around
Several people sit together reading proverbs aloud to each other. From these proverbs are prompted stories of each one's past, or musings surrounding life-long mysteries. Each tries to tell about some incident which they hope will illuminate their own being; hoping the others will understand who they are. Each story flows to the next, with a musical quality to the randomness. Albee explains it this way: "FRAGMENTS lacks plot in any established sense; there is no clear dilemma and resolution-no 'story,' no apparent sequentially. The piece proceeds as a piece of music does-accumulating, accumulating, following its own logic. Its effectiveness, its coherence reside in what we have experienced from the totality of it. FRAGMENTS is also a very simple, straightforward piece-on its own terms, of course."
Homelife
Edward Albee delves deeper into his 1958 play THE ZOO STORY by adding a first act, HOMELIFE, leading to Peter's fateful meeting with Jerry on a park bench in Central Park.
Knock! Knock! Who's There?
Lady From Dubuque, The
Three young couples are playing Twenty Questions. The drinks have been flowing, so the mood has gone from good to bad in a very short time. As it happens, the hostess, who has the most abrasive tongue of all, is dying of cancer, and the party ends when her pain becomes so intense her husband must carry her to bed. After the stage is empty, a handsome, mysterious woman, accompanied by an equally handsome man, enter the house and settle in for the night. In the morning they are still there to greet the baffled young husband and his ailing wife when they come down for breakfast. Unruffled by the young couples questions, the two must also confront the guests of the previous evening. While claims are accepted that the mysterious woman is the mother of the dying wife, intriguing inconsistencies remain: Is she, in truth, the angel of death? In the end there are no neat answers, but questions raised, and debated, will reverberate in the mind long after the play itself has ended.
Listening
Constructed with the precision of a musical composition, and described by Clive Barnes as "a chamber opera and a symbolic poem about communication," the play juxtaposes three characters-"The Man," "The Woman," and "The Girl"-and sifts through the tangled relationship they have evidently shared. The Man is amiable but distant; The Woman acerbic and bitter; The Girl is perhaps mad-a catatonic who has destroyed her own child. Elliptical in form and redolent with evocative overtones, the play weaves together its strands of conversation and soliloquy into a meaningful pattern of events-underscoring the inescapable fact that while we may listen we do not always hear, and our lives, for better or worse, are shaped accordingly.
Lolita
Widely familiar as a successful novel and motion picture, LOLITA details the controversial obsession of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man of some education and refinement, to possess Dolores Haze, a pre-teen "nymphet." Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes which are commented on by an urbane narrator, the play follows the peregrinations of the increasingly desperate Humbert as he first marries Dolores's mother and then engineers her death-after which he and "Lolita" embark on a zigzag tour of America's motels, always one step ahead of another "dirty old man" with whom his hostage is in love. In the end, "Lolita" escapes Humbert's clutches only to marry a deaf man and die in childbirth-her tormentors, in turn, follow their own destinies toward either madness or murder.
Malcolm
In the words of Stanley Kauffmann, the play, ". . .which is a fantasy of the corruption of innocence, concerns a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy, well-dressed and well-spoken, who-when we meet him-has been sitting daily on a bench in front of a hotel in a nameless American city. He is observed by an elderly astrologer named Cox, who speaks to Malcolm one day and learns that the boy is waiting for his father, who has disappeared. Cox seizes psychological dominance over him and sends him on a series of visits ostensibly to integrate him with the world but which ultimately destroy him. Malcolm visits a December-May couple (she is a young former prostitute, he is an ancient who claims to be 192), a middle-aged couple (he is ludicrously rich, she is attended by four lovers in white suits), a hip couple (an author and a painter) and a blonde pop singer, who takes the child as her latest husband and kills him with drink and sex. All these characters know one another. They are further linked within the play because t
Man Who Had Three Arms, The
The play takes place in a theatre where the main character HIMSELF is about to speak to the assembled group about his life of celebrity as The Man Who Had Three Arms. The other two actors of the play, Shemale and WOMAN, play, variously, two people who are introducing HIMSELF, the parents and wife of HIMSELF, and the manager of HIMSELF. In the first act, HIMSELF describes his transformation from a successful family man to a person who is horrified to discover that a third arm is growing from between his shoulder blades. In the second act, HIMSELF describes being on the celebrity circuit and all that entails—“money, sex, adulation”—while he grows more and more in debt. His wife leaves him. He falls apart in front of the audience only to deal with a final surprise.The play contains harsh satire of the Catholic Church, the excesses of the culture of celebrity, and the shallowness of parent/child relationships, and involves some interaction between the lead character and the audience. It also contains quite a bit of humor and occasional vulgar language. The third arm may be a metaphor for the discovery and development of genius or talent in an otherwise unremarkable individual.
Marriage Play
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 outside and coming in again-twice! Jack wants his wife, whom he still loves, to really understand his fears and the reasons he must leave her. His days seem unknown to him; his secretary of fifteen years is a total stranger; his sex is by rote. Gillian understands but feels the investment of a thirty-year marriage is worth holding on to because so much is in place, and quite frankly, they've been through these changes before: affairs, neglect, sections of time forgotten. Jack accuses Gillian of not listening, an accusation she easily returns, and when Jack then does start to leave, Gillian blocks him and a small battle ensues. Retreating to their corners, both recount memorable points in their marriage and lives, and discovering that through it all, nothing is really enough. A
Me, Myself and I
The identical twins at the center of the play, are named Otto, which, as another character points out, is a palindrome, a word spelled the same way backwards or forwards. Two triangular relationships exist in Albee's play. Albee's twin Ottos do have different names, in a way: One's is spelled in all caps, the other's in all lowercase. The latter, unsurprisingly, is the quieter "good" twin, who loves his mother, or at least says he does. To show what a good boy he is, he even asserts that his louder, wickeder, all-caps brother loves her "in his own way." The mother we're speaking of doesn't make loving easy. Having been deserted by her spouse the day after the twins were born, she's been living with her "crazy doctor" for the boys' entire 28 years. Tyrannical, obstinate, and arbitrary in the tradition of Albee matrons, this mother is nonstop high-maintenance. You can see why the twins have apparently chosen to live elsewhere, lowercase otto with his girlfriend, Maureen. But you can't be sure of that, either, since the set for what's apparently the young couple's bedroom contains—what
Occupant
a portrait of acclaimed sculptor Louise Nevelson and a quest to capture a charismatic and complex artist and persona. What is the relationship between creator and creation? Who was Louise Nevelson? Only she knew - nytheatre.com
Peter and Jerry
Edward Albee delves deeper into his 1958 play, The Zoo Story, by adding a first-act, Homelife, leading to Peter's fateful meeting with Jerry on a park bench in Central Park
Play About The Baby, The
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.
Sandbox, The
A man in a spotlight, clad in swimming trunks, is doing his exercises silently. A couple appears to remark, dryly, "Well, here we are; this is the beach." The woman orders a clarinetist out onto the stage and commands him to play. The couple exits, then returns carrying the woman's eighty-six-year-old mother and dumps her in a sandbox. Grandma begins to weave her history between the cool, indifferent patter of the people and the equally cool, but somehow more sympathetic, sounds from the clarinet. As Grandma covers herself with sand, it begins to dawn that the mysterious, cryptic athlete is much more than local color, and his conversation with Grandma is, in fact, prelude to his purpose. He is "after all, the Angel of Death."
Seascape
On a deserted stretch of beach a middle-aged couple, relaxing after a picnic lunch, talk idly about home, family and their life together. She sketches, he naps, and then, suddenly, they are joined by two sea creatures-lizards who have decided to leave the ocean depths and come ashore. Initial fear, and then suspicion of each other, are soon replaced by curiosity and, before long, the humans and the lizards (who speak admirable English) are engaged in a fascinating dialogue. The lizards, who are at a very advanced stage of evolution, are contemplating the terrifying, yet exciting, possibility of embarking on life out of the water; and the couple, for whom existence has grown flat and routine, holds the answers to their most urgent questions. These answers are given with warmth, humor and poetic eloquence, and with emotional and intellectual reverberations that will linger in the heart and mind long after the play has ended.
The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
O comedie care ascunde drama unei femei care află ca soțul ei, pe care-l iubise o viață întreagă, s-a îndrăgostit sincer de o capră.
Trei femei înalte (Three Tall Women)
In Act One, a young lawyer, "C," has been sent to the home of a client, a ninety-two-year-old woman, "A," to sort out her finances. "A," frail, perhaps a bit senile, resists and is of no help to "C." Along with "B," the old woman's matronly paid companion/caretaker, "C" tries to convince "A" that she must concentrate on the matters at hand. In "A's" beautifully appointed bedroom, she prods, discusses and bickers with "B" and "C," her captives. "A's" long life is laid out for display, no holds barred. She cascades from regal and charming to vicious and wretched as she wonders about and remembers her life: her husband and their cold, passionless marriage; her son and their estrangement. How did she become this? Who is she? Finally, when recounting her most painful memory, she suffers a stroke. In Act Two, "A's" comatose body lies in bed as "B" and "C" observe no changes in her condition. In a startling coup-de-theatre, "A" enters, very much alive and quite lucid. The three women are now the stages of "A's" lifeThe Caretaker is the Tall Woman herself. Character A is looking back on her life, with Character B having experienced what Character C is going to experience. Yes, there is her lawyer, the male. Where would a Although mentioned, Where would a different Caretaker physically appear? This play in a way, reflects "Rockaby." Similar in that the woman is alone (as we all are), at death. In Rockaby, it is the woman's last 'breath', wherein, in "Three Tall Women," the woman is recollecting episodes in her life that led up to her "status in life." She didn't marry for love, but for money and the sex (while it lasted). Her estranged gay son, nor anyone else cares. Her lawyer, like herself, is there for "business" which like her younger self, is in pursuit of money. Note the naive younger self, who is told by her older self what she will/will not do. Very clever, and like us all, wishful thinking based on the hindsight of our lives. I really like the Part 2 where Character C talks about wanting sex and the description of "Hard, all Sinew and Muscle." "Lindsey Clark"
Tiny Alice
TINY ALICE begins with a venomous exchange between a lawyer and a cardinal whose contempt for each other careens back to their school days. Eventually, the lawyer offers the cardinal $100 million a year at the request of Miss Alice, the world's richest woman. Julian, the cardinal's secretary, is to come to Miss Alice's castle to complete the details, but while there, Julian falls prey to Miss Alice as she contrives to make him her lover. Through the related transmutations of religious ecstasy and orgasmic pleasure, Julian's true feelings are terrifyingly revealed, and the stage is set for the electrifying climax of this eloquent, compelling play
Cui i-e frică de Virgina Woolf? (Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf)
Un cuplu de tineri căsătoriți față în față cu un cuplu de oameni bătrâni; toate iluziile despre căsătorie și viața în doi față în față cu toată dezamăgirea și ura lumii adunată în doi oameni. Piesa aceasta este despre infernul căsătoriei, despre cum traiul împreună desfigurează oamenii, despre ură și resemnare, despre obișnuința morbidă cu lașitățile celuilalt, despre renunțarea la orice ideal în viață.
Zoo Story, The
A man sits peacefully reading in the sunlight in Central Park. There enters a second man. He is a young, unkempt and undisciplined vagrant where the first is neat, ordered, well-to-do and conventional. The vagrant is a soul in torture and rebellion. He longs to communicate so fiercely that he frightens and repels his listener. He is a man drained of all hope who, in his passion for company, seeks to drain his companion. With provocative humor and unrelenting suspense, the young savage slowly, but relentlessly, brings his victim down to his own atavistic level as he relates a story about his visit to the zoo.

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Eduard Albee

Eduard Albee s-a nascut la data de in , SUA.

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