Edward Albee Takes a Stand Against Creative Liberties with his Works

Playwright Edward Albee, best known for Who's Araid of Virginia Woolf?,  gave a rare public interview at the Sydney Theatre Company, and had not too many complimentary things to say about the state of theater production today, according to a report in moreintelligentlife.com.

The interview, moderated by Australian theater personality Jonathan Biggins, reveals Albee's utter disappointment with what be believes is the modern theatrical process, which gives as much importance to the "director's vision" as it does to the script itself.

Says the legendary scribe: "I see and hear my play on stage in my mind when I write it. I expect people to perform it that way." 

He has indeed been a vocal critic of productions that take liberties with the staging and direction of his works, and, like Samuel Beckett before him, Albee seems hellbent on leaving a purist legacy in which his works are to be brought to life as he has written it.

Naturally, this purist school of thought has sparked criticism on the part of those who see value in a directors interpretation of material.  Laura Parker is one such critic.  In moreintelligentlife.com she argues: "The problem is not only that Albee is selective with his dismay, but that his views are so dazzlingly out of date. Theatre is an ever-growing, ever-changing medium. No progress could ever be made if everyone stuck to the rules. To interpret a work from a single point of view (that of the person who created it) is to impose an unreasonable limit on that work. Meaning doesn’t lie with the creator, but with each reader, each observer. In theatre the roles of directors and actors are increasingly important, not just for the growth of theatre but for fresh takes on old works. Albee’s wishes for ceaseless loyalty are not only difficult to implement (how can a theatre company know exactly what was intended?), but disrespectful to those directors and actors who are driving innovation in theatre."

To read Parker's full rebuttal, click here.

Albee's works include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance, and Seascape, among dozens of others. His plays are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger American Playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee continues to experiment in new plays, such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia?