Edward Albee is one of my favorite playwrights of all time; and actually -- maybe I'm just weird -- I loveThe Zoo Story. A quote from it sits right on my bed-side table, in fact: ...[H]e smiled benignly, wrapped up the hamburger in waxed paper, and said: A bite for ya pussy-cat? I wanted to say: No, not really; it's part of a plan to poison a dog I know. But, you can't say 'a dog I know' without sounding funny; so I said, a little too loud, I'm afraid, and too formally: YES, A BITE FOR MY PUSSYCAT. People looked up. It always happens when I try to simplify things; people look up.
But Who's Afraid has kind of a special place in my heart. (We won't even go into how many quotes from it are on scraps of paper under the bed.) If you haven't seen the movie, check it out: it's Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and it gave me a new perspective on the play when I saw it. On the page, it's a very sharp, witty, almost erudite play sometimes; on the screen, it becomes much more grating and pathetic, and that's as it should be.
This comment is getting to be overly long, but Cat is my favorite Williams play, so I have to mention it, too. As you saw, there's a movie version, and I saw it knowing that it had been toned down. Actually, although it was less explicit than the original version, the homosexual element was still very clear to me, and, I think, to the other people watching with me. Of course, that might've been because I knew from reading the play what was really going on, or maybe I'm hyperattuned to these things. In any case, it's a pretty good movie. I don't like some of the changes that were made between the page and the screen, but that's life.
Coincidentally, Liz Taylor is the leading lady in it, too. And Paul Newman plays Brick.
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...[H]e smiled benignly, wrapped up the hamburger in waxed paper, and said: A bite for ya pussy-cat? I wanted to say: No, not really; it's part of a plan to poison a dog I know. But, you can't say 'a dog I know' without sounding funny; so I said, a little too loud, I'm afraid, and too formally: YES, A BITE FOR MY PUSSYCAT. People looked up. It always happens when I try to simplify things; people look up.
But Who's Afraid has kind of a special place in my heart. (We won't even go into how many quotes from it are on scraps of paper under the bed.) If you haven't seen the movie, check it out: it's Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and it gave me a new perspective on the play when I saw it. On the page, it's a very sharp, witty, almost erudite play sometimes; on the screen, it becomes much more grating and pathetic, and that's as it should be.
This comment is getting to be overly long, but Cat is my favorite Williams play, so I have to mention it, too. As you saw, there's a movie version, and I saw it knowing that it had been toned down. Actually, although it was less explicit than the original version, the homosexual element was still very clear to me, and, I think, to the other people watching with me. Of course, that might've been because I knew from reading the play what was really going on, or maybe I'm hyperattuned to these things. In any case, it's a pretty good movie. I don't like some of the changes that were made between the page and the screen, but that's life.
Coincidentally, Liz Taylor is the leading lady in it, too. And Paul Newman plays Brick.
Paul Newman plays Brick.
It's amazing. :)