SOURCE: "Three Cheers for Albee," in New Yorker, Vol. 36, No. 51, February 4, 1961, pp. 62, 64-66.

In the following excerpt, Balliett offers a highly complimentary assessment of The American Dream and a negative appraisal of Bartleby.

Classic tragedy is still kaput, and that rare and most admirable acrobat who, by managing the almost invisible tightrope between tragedy and comedy, produced the incalculably effective form known as tragicomedy no longer exists. He has been replaced by the horror-comic writer, who, like his progenitor, must have perfect equilibrium. If he slips, the results are either cruel or empty. Fortunately, it doesn't look as if Edward Albee, the thirty-two-year-old author of The American Dream, a one-act play at the York Playhouse, will ever slip. His first and third plays, The Zoo Story and The Sandbox, which were successfully unveiled in New York early last year, are estimable demonstrations of his footwork, and this time...