SOURCE: A review of Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, in Commonweal, Vol. LXXXIX, No. 4, October 25, 1968, pp. 120, 122.

In the following excerpt, Weales provides a favorable assessment of Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

Edward Albee's new play and/or plays, Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, came into New York, burdened with a reputation that set up the worst kind of expectations. Reports from Buffalo, where the work had its premiere last spring at the Festival of the Arts, told of boredom and impatience. The creators' reaction to the critical response, both public (in the New York Times Magazine, Albee said of the non-speaking clergyman in Mao, "I suppose he's sort of a critic, except that he's sober") and private (the string of silly-ass telegrams that the author, director and producer sent to a Canadian critic) suggested infantile defense of a lost cause. The production...