Bellamy on Broadway

Albee 'Tiny Alice' Is Depraved, Revolting

words on the sidewalk.

By PETER BELLAMY the memoirs of the Marquis NEW YORK-A number of de Sade. His characters, acNew York drama critics have tions and lives suggest dirty expressed puzzlement as toj what playwright Edward AlTHE SCENES involving bee is trying to prove in his heterosexual amour sound as drama, "Tiny Alice." Albee though they had not a man himself has never given a and a woman involved, but lucid explanation.

two men. Although there are

I do not know what Albee implications of chair fetishism, is trying to prove in this play, the playwright sounds like a but I do know it is one of the ripe candidate for a psychimost depraved and revolting atrist's couch.

plays I've ever seen. The sec-

The pace of the play is slow ond act ends with a sex act and it is boresomely talky. It which may not even be hinted is a relief when Sir John at in a newspaper. If one were Gielgud is murdered in the a cynic he'd take one look at last act. He has a wonderful the sexual tableaux and won-voice and plays the role of the der what Albee has in mind homosexual lay brother with for an encore. superb conviction.

AS PRESENTED at the Irene Worth, as the heartBilly Rose Theater, "Tiny less, alcoholic nymphomaniac, Alice" emphasizes the scato-is also impressively miserlogical, homosexuality and

cruelty. It is degenerate.

lable.

THE MAN IN FRONT of One of the things the mat-[me slept through the performter with the American theater ance. I envied him. "Tiny is that audiences will pay to Alice" in its own way is as see plays like this. It is denasty as "The Toilet," which grading. should have won a bar of Among other things, the soap as the most repulsive play seems to be Albee's per-play of the year. sonal and venomous attack on Now that I think of it, Albee organized religion in general should have his mind washed and the Roman Catholic out with soap. Some critics Church, in particular. Though seem to find great symbolism I am not a Catholic, this gar-and allegory in "Tiny Alice." bage made my very flesh I think he has confused sex creep. It is a psychiatrist's and sensationalism for their nightmare. own sake with theatricality. As one opposed to censor-I hope I make myself clear. ship on principle, I have never quite agreed with some of the Dynamite Attack Fails strict ideas on the subject held

PANAMA (PA stick of

by Plain Dealer columnist dynamite apparently thrown Joseph Saunders. However, as

I viewed this theatrical disfrom a passing car exploded grace, I thought: "Joe, get Saturday night on the front

me out of here!"

lawn of the U.S. Embassy office building. National BRIEFLY, the story concerns a religious lay brother Guard headquarters said no of homosexual habits who is damage was reported. The sent to influence a wealthy dynamite did not explode with nymphomaniac to donate a full force.

large sum to the church. If the day brother is not a moral]. leper before he meets "Tiny Alice," her corruption of him is complete.

Albee's play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was a tragic, harrowing experience, but at least its hateful characters had human validity. "Tiny Alice" reads more like