You have to write about certain areas of discontent and misalignment in people's lives

"Every one of my plays is an act of optimism, because I make the assumption that it is possible to communicate with other people," Mr. Albee said. "The people who think 'Virginia Woolf' was a love story are a lot closer to the truth than those who think it was a tragedy. At least there was communication in that marriage." They were getting rid of all the garbage in their lives, "so they could build something," he explained.

"You have to write about certain areas of discontent and misalignment in people's lives," Mr. Albee added. "Name me a good serious play where all the characters are good, happy people getting along."

The script of Mr. Albee's childhood was also one of acrimony. He tried to run away, or actually motor away on a boat, when he was 11, but he was stopped at the dock.

"I don't think anybody growing up in a white, upper-middle-class, rich, deeply fascistically Republican family could be said to grow up until he has left," Mr. Albee said in his soft, slightly raspy voice. "That's not only in Larchmont, that's anywhere.

"I consider myself lucky to be an adopted kid. I was given all the education I could possibly want, creature comforts. But I spent most of my time with my nannies or away at summer camp and at school. I didn't see those damn people -- my parents -- more than six weeks of the year."

Unswervingly, the playwright zeroes in on his target, those people who live a life of self-deception. Artifice is necessary to survive, Mr. Albee said, only if it is seen for what it truly is. Holding Up a Mirror

"As somebody said in one of my plays, 'There's nothing wrong with self-deception as long as they know they're deceiving themselves.' My plays are an attempt to get people to stop behaving in certain negative ways. To live their lives more completely. To stop sliding through it.

"I try to hold a mirror up to people and say, 'Look, this is what you are and this is the way you're behaving. Change! Don't accuse me of yelling at you. Change!' "

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/15/specials/albee-larchmont.html