Edward Albee (1928-2016) Tribute List

Playwright Edward Albee died on September 16, 2016 at the age of 88. Albee was known for writing intense plays about regret and despair, and how people adapt to these emotions. A winner of multiple Tony Awards and three Pulitzer Prizes as well as the acclaim of a generation of critics and his peers alike, Albee had an adversarial relationship with critics and didn't seem to care too much about praise. His outlook can be summed up by this line from The Play About The Baby : "If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?" Albee's art was about exploring these wounds. Here are twelve quotes from the work of Edward Albee and the man himself.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. revile
    spread negative information about
    George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy...Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “Yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me, and must be punished for it.
    - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
    Revile can also mean to hate to an intense degree.
  2. encumbered
    loaded to excess or impeded by a heavy load
    And the west, encumbered by crippling alliances, and hardened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must ..... eventually ..... fall.
    - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  3. declension
    the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives
    You...you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?"
    What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man?
    - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  4. vicissitude
    a variation in circumstances or fortune
    You can’t involve yourself with the vicissitudes of fashion or critical response. I’m fairly confident that my work is going to be around for a while. I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.- From a book of interviews, 1988
  5. parameter
    any factor defining a system and determining its performance
    If I read a book, go to a play, see a painting, or hear a piece of music that makes me expand the parameters of my response — makes me think differently, makes me think more completely about something — then I’ve had a useful experience. Otherwise, as I said, it’s merely decorative and a waste of time. - Interview, 2005
  6. calamitous
    having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences
    . well, you know how little I vary; goodness, (At soja R.) I can't even raise my voice except in the most calamitous of events, and I find that both joy and sorrow work their . . . wonders on me more ... evenly, slowly, within, than most: a suntan rather than a scalding. There are no mountains in my life . . . nor chasms. It is a rolling, pleasant land . . . verdant...
    - A Delicate Balance
  7. verdant
    characterized by abundance of vegetation and green foliage
    . well, you know how little I vary; goodness, I can't even raise my voice except in the most calamitous of events, and I find that both joy and sorrow work their . . . wonders on me more ... evenly, slowly, within, than most: a suntan rather than a scalding. There are no mountains in my life . . . nor chasms. It is a rolling, pleasant land . . . verdant...
    - A Delicate Balance
    Here, verdant means green and flowering with plant life.
  8. persist
    refuse to stop
    if you are expecting it, if you are sadly and wearily expecting it, it does-if these conditions exist ... persist ... then the reaction of one who is burdened by her love is not brutality-though it would be excused, believe me! -not brutality at all, but the souring side of love.
    -A Delicate Balance
  9. disparity
    inequality or difference in some respect
    I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I'm tired.I'm tired of the truth and I'm tired of lying about the truth.
  10. malignancy
    quality of being disposed to evil; intense ill will
    The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.
    - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  11. slothful
    disinclined to work or exertion
    It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
  12. catharsis
    purging of emotional tensions
    I don't feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.
Created on Fri Sep 16 22:04:02 EDT 2016 (updated Sat Sep 17 01:27:18 EDT 2016)

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