{"id":102797,"date":"2016-09-18T18:24:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T22:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=102797"},"modified":"2016-09-18T20:32:44","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T00:32:44","slug":"edward-albee-1928-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_102798\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-102798\" class=\"wp-image-102798\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\" width=\"600\" height=\"854\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-102798\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A manuscript page from <i>A Delicate Balance<\/i>. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n<p>If one can talk at all about a general reaction to your plays, it is that, as convincing and brilliant as their beginnings and middles might be, the plays tend to let down, change course, or simply puzzle at the end. To one degree or another this complaint has been registered against most of them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ALBEE<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps because my sense of reality and logic is different from most people\u2019s. The answer could be as simple as that. Some things that make sense to me don\u2019t make the same degree of sense to other people. Analytically, there might be other reasons\u2014that the plays don\u2019t hold together intellectually; that\u2019s possible. But then it mustn\u2019t be forgotten that when people don\u2019t like the way a play ends, they\u2019re likely to blame the play. That\u2019s a possibility too. For example, I don\u2019t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward. If I\u2019ve been accused a number of times of writing plays where the endings are ambivalent, indeed, that\u2019s the way I find life.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/4350\/the-art-of-theater-no-4-edward-albee\" target=\"_blank\">Edward Albee, The Art of Theater No. 4<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INTERVIEWER If one can talk at all about a general reaction to your plays, it is that, as convincing and brilliant as their beginnings and middles might be, the plays tend to let down, change course, or simply puzzle at the end. To one degree or another this complaint has been registered against most of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2119,24613,24610,24612,1132,14432,13911,24611,44,4213,5322],"class_list":["post-102797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-2119","tag-a-delicate-balance","tag-edward-albee","tag-fall-1966","tag-interviews","tag-plays","tag-playwrights","tag-the-art-of-theater","tag-theater","tag-theatre","tag-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The playwright has died at age eighty-eight. The Paris Review interviewed him in 1966.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016 by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 18, 2016 \u2013 INTERVIEWERIf one can talk at all about a general reaction to your plays, it is that, as convincing and brilliant as their beginnings and middles might\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\"},\"wordCount\":221,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\",\"keywords\":[\"1966\",\"A Delicate Balance\",\"Edward Albee\",\"Fall 1966\",\"interviews\",\"plays\",\"playwrights\",\"The Art of Theater\",\"theater\",\"theatre\",\"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf\"],\"articleSection\":[\"In Memoriam\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\",\"name\":\"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00\",\"description\":\"The playwright has died at age eighty-eight. The Paris Review interviewed him in 1966.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016","description":"The playwright has died at age eighty-eight. The Paris Review interviewed him in 1966.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016 by The Paris Review","og_description":"September 18, 2016 \u2013 INTERVIEWERIf one can talk at all about a general reaction to your plays, it is that, as convincing and brilliant as their beginnings and middles might","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"The Paris Review","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"The Paris Review","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/"},"author":{"name":"The Paris Review","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e"},"headline":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016","datePublished":"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/"},"wordCount":221,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif","keywords":["1966","A Delicate Balance","Edward Albee","Fall 1966","interviews","plays","playwrights","The Art of Theater","theater","theatre","Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"],"articleSection":["In Memoriam"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/","name":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif","datePublished":"2016-09-18T22:24:40+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-19T00:32:44+00:00","description":"The playwright has died at age eighty-eight. The Paris Review interviewed him in 1966.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/albee-e.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/edward-albee-1928-2016\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Edward Albee, 1928\u20132016"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e","name":"The Paris Review","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c15ccd1e2629bc3b1a8aa1a407e1186742acfaf923abe2addfec0885197794ff?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"The Paris Review"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/parisreview\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102797"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102803,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102797\/revisions\/102803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}