The late playwright Edward Albee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
A Delicate Balance in 1967. Last night I watched the 1973 film version courtesy of Netflix. It features a powerhouse cast of six who have all passed away. Tony Richardson, the director, is also long gone. The story begins with the post-dinner discussion of a well-to-do middle age New England couple played by Katherine Hepburn and Paul Scofield. Their life is comfortable, but it's obvious something is missing. A succession of visitors brings out the angst: Kate Reid as a heavy-drinking sister, Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair as spooked best friends seeking refuge, and Lee Remick as a chain-smoking, four time divorcee who returns to her parents. While the situation frequently turns ugly, the attacks do not go as far as the viciousness of George and Martha in the screen version of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which starred the perfectly cast Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Although the acting is first rate, I was not as moved as I used to be by such work. Of course, I suffer just as much existential angst as most folks, maybe more. The lives of the characters in
A Delicate Balance seem empty of meaning. I seek it in writing and selling books on the street, despite the futility of the endeavors. I also avoid the blues by keeping busy with other pastimes - the computer, listening to music, reading, and watching TV. The most interesting moment of the play occurs at the arrival of the friends, who fled their home when they realized the nothingness there. It acknowledges the mystery of life and what, if anything, comes after it, the dread of the void most people fear. That would upset the comfort level of anyone of any class, especially those who have the leisure time to think or are naturally given to reflection. In order to better understand the author's meaning, I googled it and found this quote by Albee... "... the rigidity and ultimate paralysis which afflicts those who settle in too easily, waking up one day to discover that all the choices they have avoided no longer give them any freedom of choice, and that what choices they do have left are beside the point.” Are the choices I have left beside the point? It's a frightening thought one feels the urge to immediately deny. It's the type that makes the play, or any work of art, successful - a challenge to look within. Obviously, such a work has limited appeal, mostly to serious actors and writers. 519 users at IMDb have rated
A Delicate Balance, forging to a consensus of 6.9 on a scale of ten. It might be one of those works that improves at each viewing. Here's a pic of the cast and director:
My thanks to Ralph, an Italian-American who bought
The Joys of Yiddish by Leo ROSTEN,
Does the World Need the Jews by Daniel Gordis, and a book on Macrobiotics that has a chiseled weightlifter on the cover, which had us laughing at the intimation that such a body is easily achieved. Ralph aptly remarked that the workouts to produce such a physique were a full time job. My thanks also to the elderly woman who insisted on paying for a book in Russian despite the fact that she donated one.
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