By Jesse Oxfeld 9/15/10 1:09am

Who’s Confused by Edward Albee?

“You’re confusing them,” the character called simply Dr. says of the audience during the first act of Me, Myself & I, the new Edward Albee play, which opened at Playwrights Horizons Sunday night. “And a confused audience is not an attentive one, I read somewhere.”

“Oh?” replies Mother, with whom Dr. has shared a bed Read More

By John Heilpern 1/05/04 12:00am

The Good, the Bad and The Foot-in-Mouth

And so, to the moment the nation has been waiting for: Before announcing the winners of our 2003 Theater Awards, it is our solemn duty, as always, to state the rules set out in subsection 2(b), paragraph 52(e), of the Awards Committee Constitution. This duly noted, and notwithstanding the exceptions contained within clause 382(h), paragraph Read More

By John Heilpern 2/12/01 12:00am

I’ve Got You, Babe: Mr. Albee’s Inner Child

The longer a successful dramatist lives, the more he’s sure

to go out of fashion. It seems to be an axiom in a punishing trade that almost

every major playwright writes a small cluster of great plays when young,

destined to become capriciously “unfashionable” over time. The plays are then

rediscovered when it’s too late-too Read More

By John Heilpern 5/08/00 12:00am

The Great Uncle Vanya Meets A Wrecking Ball Production

Chekhov is such a lovely writer, isn’t he? I think, feeling foolish: Where would we be without him? Where would modern theater be? And humanity, of course, suffering, farcical humanity. “I think that in Anton Chekhov’s presence everyone involuntarily felt himself a desire to be simpler, more truthful, more one’s self,” wrote Maxim Gorky. For Read More