Three Tall Women

Wow! This is a great play to read, the words on the page jumping straight from the eyes to the ears: painful and dark and true and exhilarating all at once. I picked it up (reminded of it because of reading about the current Broadway production with Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and Alison Pill) and was immediately taken with Albee's gifts. Not a heartwarming or sentimental picture, but oh, there's life here all right.

The two plays of Albee's with which I'm the most familiar are: (1) "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1962); and (2) "A Delicate Balance" (1966). In both cases, I watched the films before having read the plays. Thus, with "Three Tall Women", having never seen the play on stage -- I wondered how well I'd understand the "text on its own" ... From the beginning, as the characters bicker with one another, a kind of cat-and-mouse game develops, albeit imperceptibly -- Eventually, the ugly, brutal truths arrive (this play is bleak!). And this, I realized based upon my previous knowledge of the playwright's work, is the classic Albee formula -- Wherein mundane discussions morph into a blast of harsh reality ... I'm older than both of the show more characters "B" and "C" -- But younger than character "A". Having lost both of my parents, as of 2020 -- I understand the situation of "A" in a way that I wouldn't have when I was the ages of both "B" and "C". When "Three Tall Women" was first produced in NYC in 1994, my comprehension of this work would have been limited; too heavy for the person that I was in my mid-30's ... In essence: death is beckoning and "A" knows that her time is short. She's reviewing her life and she's complicated: blunt, cruel, difficult and racist. That being said, she shares certain details of her past with an unflinching honesty -- And it's a past that hasn't been all bad; she's had her fun and wild times along the way. In closing: "A" ends up giving "B", and particularly "C", a life lesson, that being: They should remember what's happening to her now -- As time will fly and it won't be long before both "B" and "C" will be staring down their mortality, as well. show less

Had to help light this play at UNI. We determined that it's really a play about horses.

A powerful woman dominates this play, first as a young adult, then in middle age, and finally as an aging matriarch. Albee has confessed that the character is based on his rather difficult adoptive mother, a figure--like the character in the play--prone to great hatreds and paranoia. At the same time, though, she is impressive for her extraordinary self-confidence and stamina. The play also contains Albee's trademark absurdist humor. Critics consider it his finest work in thirty years.