Edward Albee: A Singular Journey (review)

The basic story of this journey is already well known to students of the American theatre. Edward Albee was abandoned as an infant by his birth parents and adopted into a wealthy family. He was named after his adoptive grandfather, the vaudeville impresario E. F. Albee. While providing every material comfort, Albee's adoptive parents were distant and often disapproving of their artistic son. Albee responded by getting kicked out of a couple of prep schools, leaving college after a year and a half, and cutting all ties with his family at age twenty. A decade later he burst onto the theatre scene with his one-act play The Zoo Story and a couple years after that achieved even greater acclaim with the Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962. Pulitzer prizes followed for A Delicate Balance in 1967 and for Seascape in 1975, though Albee's critical reputation went into decline and commercial success was elusive for decades after Who's Afraid ofVirginia Woolf? With the 1994 New York production of Three Tall Women, a sympathetic fictional reexamination of his cold, domineering mother, Albee regained his esteemed position among contemporary American playwrights.

Mel Gussow's biography provides more details of what is an inherently interesting life story. Drawing on accounts from childhood and school friends in addition to Albee's own recollections, Gussow paints a picture of a wealthy household that in many ways failed to nurture Albee as a child or to appreciate his intellectual and artistic temperament. In one example, Gussow describes a scolding Albee received from his mother for removing a leatherbound volume from the house library, not understanding that the books were for show rather than for reading. After Albee broke with his parents, he took up a bohemian, gay, artist lifestyle in Greenwich Village, supported in part by a weekly payment from a trust fund established by his grandmother. Seventeen years later he reestablished contact with Frances Albee, his adoptive mother. Gussow draws on interviews with many of Albee's associates who knew Frances Albee, at least in her later years, to draw a picture of the bigoted, often amusing woman. Particularly illuminating details include her refusal to acknowledge her son's homosexuality and her eventual decision to revoke a will that had left him the bulk of her estate.

In discussing Albee's adult years, Gussow interweaves a primarily chronological account of Albee's career with a few details about his personal life. In addition to a fairly extensive discussion of Albee's interactions with his first significant lover and sometime collaborator, composer William Flanagan, Gussow briefly treats Albee's relationships with Terence McNally and interior decorator William Pennington. The book includes sections of letters from Flanagan and McNally commenting on Albee's works-in-progress or responding to reviews of productions. Gussow also quotes from interviews with artist Jonathan Thomas, Albee's companion for several decades.

Gussow is uniquely qualified to provide a biography of Albee, having closely followed his career as a critic. He first interviewed Albee in 1962, has known him as a neighbor and friend through the years, and conducted a number of interviews with Albee between 1994 and 1999 for the purpose of writing this book. Not surprisingly, the result is a largely appreciative account of the author and his work. However, Gussow does present some information that shows Albee in a negative light, including a drinking problem that was most severe from about 1967 to 1977. Albee's reserved personality comes across as rather cold at times. At his alcohol-driven worst, Albee gains a reputation for his biting criticism of others. Illustrating this point with a first-hand account of a dinner party he himself hosted, Gussow describes a fight Albee picked with another dinner guest, Joe Papp. The book also provides glimpses of Albee's self-indulgent disdain for the audiences...