Q: I understand this is the first time 'Tiny Alice' has been staged here in 36 years.Ī: Ah, that production. We spoke on the phone with the prolific 83-year-old author at his home in Manhattan. Recent revivals have met with more enthusiasm, and the time seems ripe for the Bay Area to get 'Tiny Alice' - as Albee wrote it. It has taken longer for 'Alice' to return, but that probably has more to do with its reputation, ever since the baffled and outraged reviews that greeted its 1964 premiere, as one of Albee's most difficult and cryptic plays. After the dust settled, it wouldn't be until 2005 that ACT produced its next Albee play, 'The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?' Ball had simply revived his earlier ACT version, restoring the alterations that Albee had forced him to undo when ACT brought the play to New York in 1969. That was the 1975 American Conservatory Theater staging, notorious in Albee lore, that the author tried to close because of the unauthorized changes ACT founder William Ball made in the script, particularly its ending.Īs Albee has said, he discovered the changes on a brief stopover on his way to Japan and soon learned he couldn't make ACT adhere to its contract - because it didn't have one. When Edward Albee's 'Tiny Alice' opens next week at Marin Theatre Company (previews start today), it will have been 36 years since its last major Bay Area production. 'Alice' hasn't lived here for a long time.

Facebook Twitter Email Andrew Hurteau as Brother Julian and Carrie Paff as Alice in Marin Theatre Company's staging of Edward Albee's 'Tiny Alice' Kevin Berne

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