Albee in Performance (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Albee in Performance Billy Middleton Albee in Performance. By Rakesh H. Solomon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010; pp. 304. According to Edward Albee, playwriting is "an affliction you're born with," but directing is "a craft which can be learned" (qtd. on 7). Rakesh Solomon's new book Albee in Performanceexamines Albee's career as a director, a role overshadowed by his fame as a playwright. Solomon points out that performance analyses have been omitted from Albee criticism, and his access to Albee during rehearsals and stagings of key works, along with interviews with the director and frequent collaborators, allows him to fill this gap. Solomon uses performance analysis, theatre history, and textual criticism to examine how Albee transforms his own works into dynamic stage performances. As Solomon relates, Albee's impetus for directing his own plays was sparked by dissatisfaction with what he considered inaccurate representations of his authorial intent. Solomon uses the term "double author" to refer to Albee's dual roles as playwright and director, suggesting that, in his capacity as director, Albee continues to author his texts by refining and clarifying his original intent. This notion of the double author provides a critical framework for Solomon's interpretation of Albee's directorial work throughout the book's eleven chapters. The first two chapters provide an overview of Albee's place in American drama, both as playwright and director. Of particular interest is the second chapter, which focuses on Albee's role in casting. Solomon describes Albee as a playwright who appreciates "a performer's acting skill and intelligence more . . . than his personality traits or physical attributes" (14). He points out that Albee's insistence on having the final word in directorial decisions like casting, even in productions of his work directed by others, often led to conflict with his former frequent collaborator Alan Schneider. While Schneider and others have characterized Albee's involvement as bordering on dictatorial, Solomon suggests that it testifies to Albee's vision of the playwright as the creator of a work that must be realized in production. Chapters 3 through 9 consist of Solomon's performance analyses, including rehearsal notes, for productions of The American Dream, The Zoo Story, Fam and Yam, The Sandbox, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Marriage Play, and Three Tall Women, and Albee's forays into experimental dramaturgy with Boxand Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. The playwright's notes and revisions serve as valuable tools to correct erroneous interpretations by other [End Page 142]directors and Albee scholars. In her analysis of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, for example, critic Anita Stenz has read George's repeated warnings to Martha not to mention their child as attempts to goad her into revealing their secret, suggesting that Martha has made a habit of mentioning their child in the past. But in a 1990 restaging, Albee deleted eight of these warnings, thus ensuring, according to Solomon, that George's act of violence in narrating their son's death is in response to the events of that evening rather than a reaction to Martha's supposed "cumulative breaches or her attempted infidelity" (195). Although Albee has espoused a disinterest in scholarly criticism surrounding his works, Solomon suggests that he seeks to correct critical misinterpretations through such textual changes. Chapter 10 focuses on Albee as double author. Solomon begins this chapter with a quote by British dramatist John Arden, who declares that an author who allows others to direct his work is "merely a playwriter," but a playwrightis "capable of presenting a complete artistic vision upon the stage" (qtd. on 191). Solomon argues that Albee shares an "identical conception" to Arden's, and his intent here is to draw a more explicit connection between Albee's roles as writer and director. Solomon's focus is primarily on directorial choices. References to revisions made during later productions deal largely with staging over script, and these changes are made in response to previous productions, rather than being critical interpretations of the scripts themselves. The final chapter is a compilation of Solomon's interviews with Albee and his collaborators over the decades spent researching this book...