Three Tall Women
by Edward Albee

Name: Three Tall Women
Brand: Edward Albee
SKU: 9780822214205
Rating: 3.92 (51 reviews)

Three Tall Women Book Cover — Three Tall Women Cover

Highlights

Female

Male

120 mins Present Day Role(s) for Senior Actor(s) Unit Set/Multiple Settings Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes

Awards & Recognition

Drama Critics Circle Evening Standard Award Lucille Lortel Award Outer Critics Circle Pulitzer Prize Tony Award

Winner! 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner! 1994 Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play Winner! Two 1994 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Best Play Winner! Two 1994 Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Best off-Broadway Play Winner! Two 1994 Evening Standard Awards, including Best Play Nominee: Five 2018 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play

Synopsis

Winner!

1994 Pulitzer Prize in Drama A young lawyer, C, has been sent to the home of a client, a ninety-two-year-old woman A, to sort out her finances.

A, who is frail and perhaps a bit senile, resists and is of no help to C. Teaming up with B, the old woman‘s matronly paid companion/caretaker, C tries to convince A that she must concentrate on the matters at hand.

In A’s beautifully appointed bedroom, she prods, discusses and bickers with B and C, her captives.

A’s long life is laid out for display, no holds barred.

She cascades from regal and charming to vicious and wretched as she wonders about and remembers her life: her husband and their cold, passionless marriage; her son and their estrangement.

How did she become this?

Who is she?

When recounting her most painful memory, she suffers a stroke.

In Act Two, A’s comatose body lies in bed as B and C observe no changes in her condition.

In a startling coup-de-theatre, A enters, very much alive and quite lucid.

The three women are now the stages of A’s life: the imperious old woman, the regal matron and the young woman of 26.

Her life, memories and reminiscences are now unceremoniously examined and questioned, accepted or not, but at last understood.

In the end, her son arrives and kneels at her bedside, but it is too late.

Press Reviews

"One of America’s finest playwrights. Edward Albee offers a new play so good it can only exist on the stage. A perfect illustration of why theatre is an indispensable art."
— The New York Times

"An extraordinarily brilliant new play. The best, most forceful play [Albee] has given us… to be truthful about death is admirable, but to be elegant at the same time is almost Mozartian."
— New York Post

"Blazes as bright as a midsummer day. Electrifying and heartrending, each of Albee's women is memorable."
— Wall Street Journal

"Beautiful and enduring. Three Tall Women has earned Albee his third, and most deserved, Pulitzer Prize."
— The New Yorker

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
B Looks rather as A would have at 52; plainly dressed.	—	—	Looks rather as A would have at 52; plainly dressed.
C Looks rather as B would have at 26.	—	—	Looks rather as B would have at 26.
The Boy 23 or so; preppy dress (jacket, tie, shirt, jeans, loafers, etc.).	—	—	23 or so; preppy dress (jacket, tie, shirt, jeans, loafers, etc.).
A A very old woman; thin, autocratic, proud, as together as the ravages of time will allow. Nails scarlet, hair nicely done, wears makeup. Lovely nightgown and dressing gown.	female	—	A very old woman; thin, autocratic, proud, as together as the ravages of time will allow. Nails scarlet, hair nicely done, wears makeup. Lovely nightgown and dressing gown.