Saturday, September 17, 2016

The Last Great American Playwright


The last of America’s truly great playwrights has died. Edward Albee, author of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and A Delicate Balance, among other plays, showed us American society’s false   values and gave us characters who were emotionally damaged by their own inability to face the truth.  Who is writing with such depth and putting such complex ideas on the stage today? No one that I can think of. American theater no produces playwrights of the caliber of Albee, Miller, Williams, and O’Neill. Why? I think the blame lies in the culture, which has lost its hunger for the truth and rewards authors for works of escapism and entertainment. Audiences today no longer want to search for the truth. Contemporary culture has lost its soul and its humanity and younger playwrights of the post-internet age are unwilling to hold a mirror to society and show people how shallow and deluded they truly are.

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