Book Review I enjoyed this play, but it was not my favorite in Albee's collections. This one show conflicts that people face on a daily basis in today’s society. It crosses reality and slices of life with a bitter or biting sense of accuracy. Are the 3 women truly the same person or do they just show characteristics of a woman at different stages in her life? The play deals with a multitude of situations people face as they age. It's meant to push readers or viewers into thinking beyond their [...]

Albee's obnoxious Mum died in 1989 and a few years laterhe wrote this impressive play about death and the changesthat occur in one's life. In the 60s, after the huge successof "Virginia Woolf," he endured personal attacks from dumb-oxcritics like Stanley Kauffmann and Robert Brustein. Philip Roth put in his censorious 2 cents. Suffering quietly,Albee made some dramatic missteps. By the 90s the world hadchanged and fresh critical blood was around. Freed from allthe fools, Albee came up with, prob [...]

a: (Not friendly.) She was smarter than me no: brighter, two years younger.c: (Smiles.) Or five, or seven.a: What ?c: Nothing.a: She always got better grades, had more beaux—when we were growing up. Only then; she missed more boats than you can shake a stick at.c: (examining her nails.) I’ve never shook a stick at a boat.b: (dry.) Well, maybe you should give it a try. Shaken; not shook. This is one from the slow-dawning revelation school of modern drama. Where the interaction and plot that [...]

Three Tall Women is about Albee’s mother, her experiences, his relationship with her, and her struggles to make sense of and come to terms with the decisions she made throughout her. The play has two acts: Act 1 consists of a long conversation between a 90 year old woman, her caretaker/nurse, and a lawyer representing her estate. Act 2 gives us three versions of the same woman – one 26 years old, one 56 years old, and other in her 90s – all discussing their shared life. It is never stated [...]

I saw the original production of this big comeback play of Albee's. What strikes me the most about the play is the psychological spectacle of it. Like the scene in Amadeus when Salieri marvels at "Don Giovanni" (the spectacle of Mozart "resurrecting" his dead father as the Commendatore to rise from the grave and accuse his son, etc etc), Albee raises his legendarily hateful mother from the grave and does something unnerving and beautiful - he sets her up naked and exposed for judgment, finds her [...]

I read this a long time ago but I remembered it just now and I had to include it.I remember being oddly, overwhelmingly moved by it, I can still feel the salty sting of tears beginning in my eyes as I think about it. I was, like, in its spell for a few hours afterward. I couldn't look at people, I couldn't work, I just stared mournfully into space. I can't even remember what it was about, really, or even who wrote it (the title I remembered) but I do remember something about the last wordse last [...]

It’s never easy to write a show with four characters with three being the same person. Edward Albee did so. After crafting such memorable shows as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? and Seascape he added the extraordinary Three Tall Women to his catalog. It provided the perfect vehicle for the playwright to exhibit the range of his genius. In addition to the creativity involved in the concept, he crafted a moving meditation on the physical and psychological effects of the aging process. The play [...]

"That's the happiest moment. When it's all done. When we stop. When we can stop."

Looking forward to watching it on stage tonight.

read and also we produced two versions on both sides of the Atlantic. My favouriteAlbee.

Edward Albee's Three Tall Woman is a unique and vougish two act drama that is unlike anything that has been put on stage before, essentially because of the permutation that follows after act one, where the three previous female characters from the first act later shift in act two to three selves of the same person, representing three different stages of life that one of the characters lived. The character in question who is scrutinized is known only as "A", a conservative patrician lady in her n [...]

This is the fourth of Albee's plays that I have encountered - I saw and loved "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", saw and read "The Zoo Story", and read another piece that was published with it. "Three Tall Women" was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and it is a fine work with some powerful emotions bubbling and churning throughout. I can imagine it might be a little tricky to stage, because the ratio of talk to action is quite high, and the operative mood is reminiscence.The story concerns a woman's lif [...]

Summary: Three actresses play a character (not named) at different points in her life—around late 80s, 52 and 26. The actress playing the 26 year-old version is often dismissive of the advice given by older versions of herself. As such, they are both hyper-critical towards this young version of themselves. The oldest incarnation of this character is literally on her deathbed during the second act and repeatedly speaks in vague terms about an estranged son possibly coming to visit her. He does [...]

THREE TALL WOMEN. (1991). Edward Albee. ****. This won another Pulitzer Prize for Albee, his third. There are four characters; actually, there are only two, and one doesn’t have any lines. Three of the characters are women; they are labeled “A”, “B”, and “C”. The fourth role is that of a boy, about twenty-three years old. “A” is an old woman, about ninety-one or –two-years old. “B” is a woman of about fifty-two-years. She looks a lot like “A” would look at 52. Finally [...]

After reading several of Mr. Albee’s plays, I had accepted that I wasn’t a fan of his work.And then Three Tall Women proved me wrong.In a way, Three Tall Women is a sequel of sorts to Albee’s All Over, which also looks at mortality and the end of life. All Over was my previous “favorite” of Albee's plays (as in, I was lukewarm-leaning-towards-liking-it) but Three Tall Women runs laps around All Over. The former delves deeper, hits stronger emotions, and displays an authenticity and com [...]

Edward Albee's life is sometimes more interesting to me than his plays. Most of us know he was adopted by wealthy parents who were not very nice. Instead of being thrilled that their son turned out to be a world famous, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, they rejected him for being gay and eventually threw him out of the house. After his "father" died, Albee tried to reconcile with his "mother," and thought he had succeeded, taking care of her late in life. After she died, though, this very weal [...]

I had heard bad reports about this one.I understood why when I went to the theatre.Edward Albee was again rubbing our noses in the Uncomfortable.Happily I relish that and I've always been absorbed by Death, probably because my Dad died 2 weeks before he was to turn 43 and I was a week off 15.The three women are One. And we see her whole life.Sometimes her Three Selves come on stage and chat together expressing their fears and hopes to each other and giving each other warnings and advice.Then it [...]

A robust butterfly — After seeing 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' I never expected Edward Albee to write something to surpass that. That's probably why 'Three Tall Women' took my by surpise when I first read it. I am not going to spoil the experience for you by telling you too much about the story itself. All I want to say here is that I truly enjoyed the conversations between the three women, their lives' stories, their secrets and the way they interact with each other. Because they're wome [...]

Maybe this would have blown my mind had I seen it performed and without any idea as to what the Great Big Catch was. As it was, I read this as a background study, really: the assignment was to create something similar (ahem, replicate the Great Big Catch) - which okay, isn't really that loud of a twist, and the savvy audience will likely start to realize what is going on here in twenty, twenty-five minutes into the performance. So, no analysis or deep reading of this one - just some extra volunt [...]

With his two-act play, Albee weaves the voices of his mother in three single-letter-named characters and portrays his young adult self as a nonspeaking character entitled Boy. Admittedly autobiographical, Albee does a superb job of breaking down his mother's life. First, he reveals the aging body, then the selective memory, and lastly the reflection of the entire life before the day finally comes for it all to end. (Albee's mother lived to be 92 or 91, if you listen to A.) In reality, she was a [...]

Sometimes I wonder how differently I'd feel if I saw the play live. Starting off as three separate characters and then morphing into different aspects of the same women this brings up lots of different issues about dying and what's important and the passage of time, what we remember, etc. I just didn't always feel like the characters sounded like women. Albee is a gifted writer no doubt about that and there is a lot of thoughtful insight about life put into the play but I didn't always feel like [...]

I'm a huge Albee fan and this isn't his best, but still excellent. Interesting, sad, poignant look at aging and the changes we go through as we move toward death. Some wonderful dialogue. I was confused by the "twist" in the play, if you can call it that. (slight spoiler alert). Wasn't sure if the characters in act one are the supposed to be the same people in act two. Obviously the character A is the same. But the characters B and C, not sure. Perhaps it would have been more clear if I had seen [...]

This beautifully crafted play takes on the on again, memory, and the malleability of the concept of the self. The play merge Albee's vintage ear for sharp dialogue and experimental theater. While the dialogue is biting, the trademark anger is replaces by a sadness and longing. As if the mood of the last scenes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf pervade the entire the entire play. The first Act sets the old women with her caretaker and unidentified younger women reminiscing about old women's past. [...]

After reading a few of his plays, I believe I can safely say Edward Albee was a highly creative playwright, "Three Tall Women" is no exception. Three unknowingly similar women, all at very different ages and stages within their lives, are gathered in the home of the oldest and dying woman. The first act remains grounded in reality besides some subtleties, and the second act verges on the supernatural or cosmically-linked.Can't help but thinking that this could have been easily and splendidly ada [...]

I liked this play a lot, but only because the way that the three characters of the play then become aspects of the same person. I love how C says that she will never become A and B, while A and B simply roll their eyes at the foolishness they once possessed for thinking they'd never change. It's interesting to see the same person, but at three different ages, reflect on the same circumstances, but this play also annoyed me because of the uncomfortable sexual descriptions. Sure, mentioning these [...]

Damn, Albee knows how to write a play. The simplicity of structure and the straight-forward banter of his characters make this emotionally complex play a must read for anyone interested in modern theatre. One need only look to Albee to see the standard by which all contemporary work must be measured. His prose are pointed and unmitigatedly nuanced. Albee uses a "light touch" surrealism that brings his subject-matter (in this case, the human life-cycle) into blinding focus. Next to "Virginia Wool [...]

It's an interesting juxtaposition of the three selves confronting one another and conversing. It will cause a lot of introspection, but don't read this if you're not feeling good about where you are in your own life. Particularly for women, I think this serves to peel back the layers and expose some raw truth of common experiences many of us go through, in a way that is a bit uncomfortable to read and to face.

I found it really interesting that Albee based A off of his mother in the first act, and A, B, and C off of her in the second. I love when authors steal from life, and I love it more when they admit to it. Taking that into account, I thought this was a realistic portrayel of the different stages of life. I also love Albee's style of writing, as always; it's so clever, intelligent, and has a bit of a bite to it. If you are looking for an easier read in Albee's collection, this is it.

A tight little play with only 4 characters, one of which is barely visible. Major characters are 3 women - one young, one middle aged and one old. Now you see 3 characters in the varying stages of life, but only one life is really being portrayed. As you advance through this play you understand that the story of the three is really an amalgamation of only one woman. Very well orchestrated and tightly woven - enjoyable read.

I have no words. Absolutely fantastic. Really weird, and a bit difficult to keep track of at first, (I kept confusing A, B, and C), but in the end it was absolutely incredible. Highly recommended to absolutely everyone! Please read this incredible play. Another Albee masterpiece, and considerably less disturbing than The Goat, but just as good! I loved this, and I was tearing up at the end, which was really embarrassing because I was at dance rehearsal. Oh well.