The play was an effort, he once said, to dig “so deep under the skin that it becomes practically intolerable.” Indeed, it showed marriage as a blood sport.Ī drama interspersed with corrosive comedy, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” charts a single blistering night with a history professor named George and his boozy wife, Martha, and the young couple they ensnare in their destructive, often vulgar role-playing. His most enduring, produced and analyzed work was “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” It is now widely regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century American theater. Albee’s three, awarded for the plays “A Delicate Balance,” “Seascape” and “Three Tall Women.” Only O’Neill won more Pulitzer Prizes - four to Mr. Albee’s career and the force of his best works earned him a place in the first rank of 20th-century American playwrights, alongside Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Albee Foundation, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause. Jakob Holder, executive director of the Edward F. Edward Albee, one of the most innovative playwrights of his generation, whose raw, unnerving dramas - and even the few comedies - scraped at the veneer of American success and happiness, died Sept. 16 at his home in Montauk, Long Island.
