The Cambridge companion to Edward Albee / edited by Stephen Bottoms.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bottoms, Stephen J. (Stephen James), 1968- editor.

Series:

Cambridge companions to literature.

Cambridge companions to literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Albee, Edward, 1928-2016--Criticism and interpretation.

Albee, Edward.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 263 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Introduction: The man who had three lives / Stephen Bottoms

Albee's early one-act plays: "A new American playwright from whom much is to be expected" / Philip C. Kolin

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?: toward the marrow / Matthew Roudané

"Withered age and stale custom": marriage, diminution, and sex in Tiny Alice, A delicate balance, and Finding the sun / John M. Clum

Albee's 3¹/₂: the Pulitzer plays / Thomas P. Adler

Albee's threnodies: Box-Mao-box, All over, The lady from Dubuque, and Three tall women / Brenda Murphy

Minding the play: thought and feeling in Albee's "hermetic" works / Gerry McCarthy

Albee's monster children: adaptations and confrontations / Stephen Bottoms

"Better alert than numb": Albee since the eighties / Christopher Bigsby

Albee stages Marriage play: cascading action, audience taste, and dramatic paradox / Rakesh H. Solomon

"Playing the cloud circuit": Albee's vaudeville show / Linda Ben-Zvi

Albee's The goat: rethinking tragedy for the 21st century / J. Ellen Gainor

"Words; words...they're such a pleasure." (an afterword) / Ruby Cohn

Borrowed time: an interview with Edward Albee / Stephen Bottoms.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 09 Nov 2015).

ISBN:

1-139-81721-3

1-139-00078-0