Counting the Ways is hardly even a play in any traditional understanding of the term. But then, Albee's works have come more and more of late to resemble musical compositions, and this is no exception; as he says of it: "What I intended was something like a set of piano pieces by Satie."

If in Seascape, his most recent full-length play, there was still a conflict eventuating in one of Albee's typical highly charged climaxes, here one can just barely discern the outlines of a conflict, and certainly nothing resembling a resolution. The movement (not progression, mind you) of this two-character play is circular: at the opening, She demands, "Do you love me?"—the same question He puts at the end.

The work's subtitle, "A Vaudeville," indicates what the audience should expect: a series of skits, or turns, twenty or so…. Several of these brief scenes, which more...