From the "angry young man" who wrote Who's Afraid ofVirginia Woolf in 1962, determined to expose the emptiness of American experience to Tiny Alice which reveals his indebtedness to Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco's Theatre of the Absurd, Edward Albee's varied work makes it difficult to label him precisely. Bruce Mann and his contributors approach Albee as an innovator in theatrical form, filling a critical gap in theatrical scholarship.

Bruce J. Mann is an associate professor and Chair of the English Department at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He teaches drama and modern literature and has served as a dramaturg for the university's Meadow Brook Theatre. He has published articles on Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Sam Shepard.

General Editor's Note - KIMBALL KING Chronology Introduction - BRUCE J. MANN 1. Three Tall Women: Return to the Muses - BRUCE J. MANN 2. Edward Albee: A Retrospective (and Beyond) - ANNE PAOLUCCI 3. Absurdly American: Rediscovering the Representation of Violence in The Zoo Story - LISA M. SIEFKER 4. Good, Better, Best, Bested: The Failure of American Typology in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- LINCOLN KONKLE 5. Like Father, Like Son: The Ciphermale in A Delicate Balance and Malcolm - ROBERT F. GROSS 6. Forging Text into Theatre: Edward Albee Directs Box andQuotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung 7. A Demystified Mystique: All Over and the Fall ofthe Cult of True Womanhood - EMILY ROSENBAUM 8. The Lady from Dubuque: Into the Labyrinth - RONALD F. RAPIN 9. Postmodernist Tensions in Albee's Recent Plays - NORMA JENCKES 10. Directing Three Tall Women - LAWRENCE SACHAROW 11. Interview with Edward Albee - BRUCE J. MANN Contributors Index