SOURCE: "The Verbal Murders of Edward Albee," in Dialogue in American Drama, Indiana University Press, 1971, pp. 130-69.

In the essay below, the critic expresses reservations about the "surface polish " of Albee's dialogue but concludes that he is "the most skillful composer of dialogue that America has produced. "

Collectively, O'Neill with his realistic idiom, Miller with his varied inflections, and Williams with his functional imagery brought American dialogue to a maturity that was Edward Albee's birthright. Albee-playwright was born at the age of thirty, with perfect command of contemporary colloquial stylized dialogue.

Albee's intensely American yet original idiom is striking if we compare a passage from Albee's first play, The Zoo Story (1959), with the competent translation into German, the language of its first production.

But good old Mom and good old Pop are dead … you know?…¹ I'm broken up about it, too …I mean really. BUT. That particular vaudeville...