Three Plays: The Death of Bessie Smith / The Sandbox / The American Dream

by Edward Albee

This new collection features three acclaimed one-act plays from Edward Albee's early years. With the initial productions of The Death of Bessie Smith, The Sandbox, and The American Dream, Albee consolidated his reputation as a brilliant new talent of the New York theater scene. These three plays tackle major themes such as race relations, American family life, and the essence of theater itself—each of which still continue to resonate. Representing the bold and exciting periods in the then young career of widely considered America's most popular and imaginative playwrights, this edition is a must-have for theater lovers.

Genres: Plays, Theatre

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Noted American playwright Edward Franklin Albee explored the darker aspects of human relationships in plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and Three Tall Women (1991), which won his third Pulitzer Prize.

People know Edward Franklin Albee III for works, including The Zoo Story , The Sandbox and The American Dream .
He well crafted his works, considered often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflected a mastery and Americanization of the theater of the absurd, which found its peak in European playwrights, such as Jean Genet, Samuel Barclay Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel credits daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue of Albee with helping to reinvent the postwar theater in the early 1960s. Dedication of Albee to continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (2000) — also routinely marks him as distinct of his era.

Albee described his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."

Reviews

[Claire]

Bessie Smith > Sandbox > American Dream

For the latter two, the concept of restaging the same play—the same cast, themes, and surely even some lines—was striking, particularly because Grandma plays dead in Sandbox; everyone haunts.

[Erin Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first play, "The Death of Bessie Smith," is easily my favorite of the three. Its depictions of Twentieth Century race relations and hostility make your heart ache. The young nurse, I think, is bat-shit crazy and still you wanna hit her.

"The Sandbox" and "The American Dream" weren't as much my cup of tea, but definitely displayed a marked theme of ageism. "Old people have nothing to say; and if old people did have something to say, nobody would listen to them."

All three plays are poignant and disturbing in their own ways.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read only “An American Dream” for class. Without the discussion I would have thought it an abstract absurdist piece with little merit. It is definitely ridiculous but ultimately makes some good points about materialism, consumerism, feminism and masculinity.

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

it’s been decades since I’ve read works by Albee, but feels fitting to revisit some theatre of the absurd on this particularly weird day that I’m definitely not celebrating, just having some extra time to read & etc…