SOURCE: "Fragments from a Cultural Explosion," in New Republic, Vol. 144, No. 13, March 27, 1961, pp. 29-30.

In the following excerpt from a review of The American Dream and The Death of Bessie Smith, Brustein argues that Albee's talent as a playwright is underdeveloped and his plays lack depth, focus, and direction.

It is often taken as a sign of progress and maturity that our formerly Philistine fatherland has now begun to consume artistic objects with an appetite fully as ravenous as that once reserved for comic books. The phrase for this awesome phenomenon, I believe, is "cultural explosion"—but out of this explosion have come only scattered shell fragments which we vainly try to shore against our ruins. For despite increasing activity and interest, our culture is in a state of severe impoverishment. While everyone, including monkeys and IBM computers, is busy "creating," almost nobody is creating well, and the...