'Tall Women' a turning point in Albee's career

By MARK LOWRY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

In 1993, May 1 was declared "Edward Albee Day" in Fort Worth.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright had come to Cowtown for the world premiere of Albee's Women, a retrospective of monologues and scenes spoken by the female characters in his plays. The show was created as a celebration of Albee's 65th birthday by then-Texas Christian University professor Andrew Harris, and it was produced by local arts philanthropist Ann L. Rhodes at Caravan of Dreams.

And it was only the beginning. If May 1, 1993, was "Edward Albee Day," 1999-2001 have been Albee years in Fort Worth, thanks to Circle Theatre's passion for him, producing his three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays in three consecutive seasons: 1967's A Delicate Balance in 1999; 1975's Seascape in 2000; and 1994's Three Tall Women, which opened Friday.

"I cannot say that any other theater has concentrated as much on my work as either [Circle Theatre] or the Alley [Theatre in Houston], but my plays get done around the country periodically," Albee says modestly.

But Three Tall Women was a turning point of sorts for a playwright who had been dismissed by many critics as an important writer whose influence dramatically nose-dived after the 1960s.

"I'm sure the success of Three Tall Women made everybody look at the work again, and it made a lot of the critics decide that they were wrong," he says, laughing.

In 1996, there was a well-received revival of Balance on Broadway. Last year saw an off-Broadway revival of a work many had long considered his most enigmatic, Tiny Alice. Back in 1968, one critic called it "the play that dare not speak its name." This time, it was widely praised.

Next spring, a revival of All Over will likely come to New York, and in the winter of 2001, New York's Second Stage will revisit Seascape.

So why the dramatic critical highs and lows for the author of the landmark Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

"I think one of the reasons is that he doesn't write for the masses," says Anne-Lynn Kettles, who was in the Hartford Stage Company's production of All Over that was broadcast on Great Performances and nominated for an Emmy, and is currently in Circle's Three Tall Women. "He writes for the elite. Some [critics] may have been put off by that, and some of them may not have understood him."

"Being an artist, he was always true to his voice," adds Susan Sargeant, who directed Circle's Seascape and Three Tall Women. "He was going to write the way he wanted to write and what spoke to him, and not to satisfy the state of Broadway and what was 'acceptable.' "

Albee even has his own answer, which he illustrates by talking about another famous American playwright, his late friend Tennessee Williams.

"Early on in [Tennessee's] career, he was writing Sweet Bird of Youth and that kind of stuff," Albee says. "And everybody was saying, 'Why doesn't he do something different? These plays are wonderful, but they're all stylistically the same.' Tennessee listened a little too much to critics, so he wrote a play called Camino Real, a very good play and highly experimental, and do you know what the critics said? 'Why doesn't he stick to what he does?' "

Albee says he doesn't let critics influence him.

"You come into fashion, you go out of fashion," he says. "Some people have it in for you, some people praise you no matter what you do. You just mustn't pay too much attention to it."

Meanwhile, Albee continues doing what he loves. Each spring, he teaches two playwriting classes at the University of Houston, which he has done since the '80s. And his Edward F. Albee Foundation and William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center in Montauk, N.Y., still thrives as a place for writers and visual artists to work.

His latest work, the fascinating puzzle-play The Play About the Baby, just finished an acclaimed, successful eight-month run off-Broadway. He's also rewriting his bio-play of Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, The Lorca Play, for a Houston production in late 2002.

Additionally, he's working on two new plays. One, called The Goat, he hopes to have produced in New York next year. He won't say much about it, other than that "it's a complex love affair." Yet another play in the works, Occupant, about sculptor Louise Nevelson, is in the earliest stages.

Albee has long had an answer when asked which play was his favorite: the one he's working on.

"The Goat," he says emphatically. "Nobody's proved me wrong on that one yet."

Mark Lowry, (817) 390-7747 markl@star-telegram.com