Edward Albee Kennedy Center Honors--1996 Elaine Stritch, George Grizzard, Rosemary Harris.

[Applause] ladies and gentlemen elaine strix [Applause] [Music] edward albee is indeed a playwright he's a playwright of faith he's a playwright of courage of strength of grace of hope and certainly of humor i laugh out loud at what edward albee tells all of us is wrong with us i'm not very much involved in edward's private life i um send him bey's english muffins every christmas and he invites me to his new year's eve party and in new york city that constitutes an intimate relationship but i am very much involved and have been on two different occasions in his work the first time in the 60s i played in who's afraid of virginia woolf i played martha at the matinee company i had a stage manager named mark wright anyway we played a game i used to send him out at the end of the show to find out what the comments were of this knock your socks off play and uh elderly sort of couple was going up the aisle after the play sort of a field point road greenwich connecticut type couple and she looked at her husband and she said i don't care walter you can say what you will but married people do not talk to one another that way and walter said bernice for christ's sake shut up thank you edward for trusting me with your magic and thank god you were pleased with the results there was a time this year when you could see edward albee's work in three new york theaters [Music] old plays and new for 40 years he has tested the limits his and ours [Music] a happy childhood not exactly he was adopted by a well-to-do westchester family they were high horse people they had the outlook of the privileged from the beginning it was a bad fit farmed out to the finest schools he made flunking out an art form [Music] all the while he was scribbling away the yearbook described him as ultra poetical super aesthetical he walked out of his house at 18 and went where all aspiring artists went greenwich village he supported writing with any old job but after 12 years he saw himself as a lapsed poet and failed novelist he was lurching toward thirty when it came to him i can't keep calling myself a writer what have i written he sat down at his kitchen table with the typewriter from his western union job in three weeks he was a playwright i don't care if it makes any sense or not i want that bench to myself and i want you off of it now go ahead get out of here now look who's mad go on get away from here no get off my back yeah you have everything in the world it was a scorching debut with two more one acts to follow they took a stand he said against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy keen i said stop it i hope that was an empty bottle george you don't want to waste good liquor not on your salary not on an associate professor's salary so here i am stuck with this flop this bog in the history department who's married to the president's daughter who's expected nobody virginia be careful martha i'll rip you to pieces you are not mad enough you haven't the guts edward albee looked a square in the eye raised his voice and told us our secrets [Music] and all america heard him he led the charge of young american writers hell-bent on waking up the audience and changing the american theater sometimes in fashion sometimes out good reviews and bad he didn't give a damn the play was the thing he has been at it for 24 plays and won three pulitzer prizes along the way a theater man he has always given back in the 60s he gave his name his time and money to the development of the off-broadway movement here and abroad he has encouraged the ambitions of new playwrights since 1985 professor alby has excited and incited his students at the university of houston not just telling them how it's done but showing them by putting to paper those distinctive uncompromising words that make us squirm i can't remember what get your hands off me okay are you sorry i remember anything i think you remember everything edward albee has attained the deepest powers of which words are capable ladies and gentlemen irene the reason i'm wearing this amazing gown is that i wore it in that amazing play tiny alice written by edward albee in 1964. nobody then understood the dress or the play and edward won't explain his work when a playwright sits down to write this is what he confronts he starts with nothing but a piece of paper a pen and an empty stage then comes an idea in edward's case it was a park bench hence his first play the zoo story here's george grizzard one of the two men who meet at that park bench have everything in the world you want you've told me about your home and your family and and your own little zoo you have everything and now you want this bench are these the things that men fight for tell me peter is this bench this iron and this wood is this your honor is this the thing in the world you'd fight for can you think of anything more absurd i was asked once to send a message to a university tribute for edward albee well i put it off and i put it off and i put it off and finally at the last minute this is what i wrote edward albee is the smartest man i know and i've met four presidents well i told edward this story later and he said which four mr president i had not met you at that time i've been very fortunate to be in two of edward's plays one of them was who's afraid of virginia woolf it was said of that play that it picked up the broadway theater by the scruff of its neck and shook it soundly here is elaine stritch george who is out somewhere there in the dark george who is good to me and whom i revile who understands me and whom i push off who can make me laugh and i'm going to choke it back in my throat who can hold me at night so that it's warm and whom i will bite so there is blood who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as i can change the rules who can make me happy and i do not wish to be happy and yes i do wish to be happy george and martha sad sad sad redwood the moment of truth always comes and so it is with a delicate balance here is rosemary harris what i find most astonishing aside from my belief that i will one day lose my mind but when never i begin to think as the years go by or i'll not know it when it happens or maybe even has what i find most astonishing i think is the wonder of the daylight of the sun all the centuries millenniums all the history i wonder if that's why we sleep at night because the darkness still frightens us they say we sleep to let the demons out to let the mind go raving mad our dreams and nightmares all our logic gone awry the dark side of our reason and when the daylight comes again comes order with it thank you edward for showing the darkness to us on this stage and for lighting it up for us again and again for us and for all the world you

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Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020