Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Albee, Edward (Vol. 25) - Dan Sullivan

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DAN SULLIVAN

"The Man Who Had Three Arms," is about a man who had three arms.

That is to say a man who once had three arms, the extra having gradually sprouted from his back in midlife, like an angel's wing or a unicorn's horn or a late-blooming talent, bringing him fame, fortune and appearances on all the talk shows.

But as unexpectedly as his new limb grew, it shrank and when the man went back to having two arms again nobody wanted to interview him on TV any more. There was, however, still the Midwest lecture circuit: afternoon talks to blue-haired ladies thrilled to meet even the formerly famous.

Albee's play takes the form of such a lecture….

Will "The Man Who Had Three Arms" be another "Virginia Woolf"? No. It's not the big play that one keeps hoping Albee will come up with, the play he needs to climb back into contention in today's theater. Neither, though, does it have the stillborn feeling of his later plays—"All Over,"...

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1. Introduction
2. Richard A. Duprey
3. Walter Kerr
4. Gareth Lloyd Evans
5. John Simon
6. Brendan Gill
7. Gerald Clarke
8. Harold Clurman
9. Robert Brustein
10. Stanley Kauffmann
11. Ben Cameron
12. Frank P. Caltabiano
13. Dan Sullivan
14. Copyright