Three Tall Women by Edward Albee is a play very close to my heart, as it's the first full length play that I directed for the ECC in 2010!
As you might surmise, there are only 3 female characters in the play, although a son also makes an appearance!
In Act One we meet three women, their roles alter in Act Two, but I will leave you to enjoy the play and see how they develop!
- A: A is a 92-year-old woman. She is thin, autocratic, proud, and wealthy, with "encroaching senility".
- B: B is a 52-year-old hired carer for A. Although she does not enjoy working for A, she learns much from her.
- C: C is a 26-year-old lawyer, present on behalf of A's law firm, because A has neglected necessary paperwork.
A, a compelling woman more than 90 years old, reflects on her life with a mixture of shame, pleasure, regret, and satisfaction. She recalls the fun of her childhood and her early marriage, when she felt an overwhelming optimism. She also bitterly recalls negative events that caused her regret: her husband’s affairs and death, and the estrangement of her gay son.
The woman’s relationship with her son is the clearest indication that Albee was working through some troubled memories of his own in Three Tall Women. Raised by conservative New England adoptive parents who disapproved of his being gay, he left home at 18, as does the son in this play. Albee admitted to The Economist that the play "was a kind of exorcism. And I didn’t end up any more fond of the woman after I finished it than when I started."
A study guide to the play noted, "Besides exorcising personal demons, Albee regained the respect of New York theater critics with the play. Many of them had despaired that the playwright, who showed such promise during the 1960s and 1970s, had dried up creatively. In fact, Three Tall Women was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1994, as well as the Drama Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle awards for best play."
This month the photos are from my personal collection.
