Edward Albee

"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."

Mr. Albee walked out of his adoptive parents' house when he was 18 -- "I had to get out of that stultifying, suffocating environment" -- and didn't see his mother for 20 years. A major rift developed between Mr. Albee and his adoptive mother. . .

"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."

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