Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance

Plymouth Theatre

In 1966, when Edward Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE had its Broadway premiere (just six years after his first play, The Zoo Story, was produced in New York and four years after his explosive hit Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Albee had become the most discussed playwright of his generation. Thus it was no surprise that A DELICATE BALANCE generated a storm of opinion. It was not 'flashy' like Virginia Woolf, but this social comedy (as Albee referred to it) was full of lacerating humor and heartwrenching pathos. With his play, Albee held up the dramatic equivalent of a funhouse mirror to the audience which was alternately amused and disturbed by his story about the fragile nature of marriages, families and friendships. Agnes and Tobias are a well-off, long-married couple who share their suburban home with Agnes' older, alcoholic sister. The "delicate balance" of their lives has already begun to teeter when their best friends arrive unexpectedly one Friday night, asking if they can stay - indefinitely. The friends explain that they were sitting at home when a nameless fear gripped them, forcing them to flee. The next day, Agnes and Tobias' grown daughter shows up, expecting to move home (again) after the failure of her fourth marriage. Agnes and Tobias soon realize they must make some difficult choices about what to do next. Lincoln Center Theater presented the first major New York production of A DELICATE BALANCE since the play's debut thirty years prior. Our production ran at Broadway's Plymouth Theatre, because the Beaumont was closed temporarily for renovation.