Biography Essay

In the early 1960s it was customary to find the names of four young playwrights linked: Edward Albee, Jack Gelber, Arthur Kopit, and Jack Richardson. These, and certain others like them, wished to prevent theater in the United States from retreating further into a detached lethargy. These playwrights were turning to Europe for new forms to experiment with, much as Eugene O'Neill had done two generations earlier. In their hands the nature of human experience was not to be rendered either by a straightforward brand of realism or by a merely genteel departure from it. Of these four playwrights, the most successful, prolific, and controversial is Edward Albee. The nature of the controversy surrounding his work seems little changed over the past two and a half decades. His willingness to experiment with the medium and to challenge the received ideas of theater audiences and society in...