Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501200005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But it isn't Broadway.
"Forget Broadway," said the playwright, who will be in Roanoke on Friday. "Broadway doesn't have to do with anything but making money."
Albee won a third Pulitzer Prize in April, for his unblinking play about his mother's life, "Three Tall Women."
Only Eugene O'Neill, who was posthumously awarded a fourth Pulitzer for the play, "Long Day's Journey into Night," has won more.
Albee will speak at North Cross School's Founder's Day convocation Friday morning, and at Mill Mountain Theatre on Friday night. The North Cross events are not open to the general public.
The playwright is expected to speak about the state of the theater in America, and has been asked to address regional theater in particular in his Mill Mountain talk.
In a telephone interview earlier this week, however, he said he seldom knows exactly what he will say until he sees his audience.
But Albee, as might be expected, has strong feelings about the state of theater and the arts in this country. He said support for the arts in America is just a fraction of what it is in Germany and Great Britain.
"And people are hacking away at that. If they get rid of the National Endowment [for the Arts], we'll be even worse off," Albee said. "It's too bad, because we could educate people a lot better than we do."
Albee said the place for serious playwrights to look to have their work performed is smaller theaters. Otherwise, "if you want to make a tremendous amount of money, go out and write films," Albee said. "Sell your soul."
Albee's plays have not appeared on Broadway for many years. He said little serious work by American playwrights is offered there.
"Three Tall Women" premiered in Europe, before coming to a 500-seat theater last year in New York. The powers who run the larger theaters had snubbed it, asking, "Who would want to see a gloomy play about a women dying?" Albee said.
The reviewers, however, were ecstatic.
"With `Three Tall Women,' '' wrote The Wall Street Journal in March, "Edward Albee has finally written another great play."
The first act of the two-act play culminates in his mother's stroke at 92, in the presence of two other women - a secretary, 52, and a lawyer, 26.
In the play's second act, the three women become his mother at different ages, and talk to each other about their life.
Albee, who had a rocky childhood - adopted as an infant, he was later kicked out of various schools and eventually out of his own house, the last for reasons apparently related to his unconventional sexuality - has called the play "a kind of exorcism. I didn't end up any more fond of the woman after I finished than when I started," he told the New York Times, after the Pulitzer was awarded in April. "But it allowed me to come to terms with the long unpleasant life she led and develop a little respect for her independence."
Albee, 66, is the author of some 24 plays. He won Pulitzer Prizes for his 1966 play, "A Delicate Balance," and the 1974 "Seascape," in addition to "Three Tall Women." But Albee is perhaps most widely known for the early 1960s play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
"Virginia Woolf," which did not win a Pulitzer, was later made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Albee spoke at Roanoke College in 1987. His recent visit owes much to a long-standing friendship with Roanoke Realtor Will Trinkle, a former neighbor of Albee's on Long Island, who serves on the Mill Mountain Theatre Board, those involved in the playwright's visit said.
Trinkle said he was approached by North Cross School officials about the possibility of having Albee speak at their Founder's Day activities. He promised to ask Albee to come - but only if the school would share the playwright with Mill Mountain Theatre.
Albee eventually agreed to spend a much busier day in Roanoke than is usual for a speaking engagement, Trinkle said. The playwright will not only speak at North Cross School and Mill Mountain Theatre, but discuss writing with young writers at North Cross School on Friday afternoon.
The school and the theater are splitting the cost of Albee's visit, said North Cross School's development director, Barry Glenn.
Said Mill Mountain Theatre Director Jere Hodgin: "We're really thrilled with his being here, and we're really thrilled to have him here. We feel like he is one of the greatest American playwrights in modern theater."
``An Evening With Edward Albee'': Friday, 7:30 p.m., Mill Mountain Theatre, Center in the Square, Roanoke. $10. 342-5740.
by CNB