Customer Reviews

Tiny Alice

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In TINY ALICE Albee presented a dilemma between belief in God and belief in the Church. The author demanded as much from his audiences as he did from himself in writing TINY ALICE. Albee's audacious comment that the meaning of this play was quite clear without further exposition sounded to me like tongue in cheek.

Key to understanding this play is how the reader interprets the on stage model of the castle. The model is seen as the original and controlling entity while the big castle replica is merely the stage on which the puppet show unwinds. It is the author's unseen character within the model, Tiny Alice, who directs the scripts for Butler, Lawyer, Cardinal and Miss Alice. All must play their roles strictly as written..

Albee viewed the Church's authority as built on a faulty foundation. The Church interprets God but refuses to create God. The Author designs a conspiracy between Butler, Lawyer, Cardinal and Miss Alice to strip Julian, a lay representative of the Church, of his beliefs and soul. Julian believes that the true God exists apart from man's interpretation of God. The Church Cardinal deliberately sacrifices Julian to both gain the offered two billion dollars and rid the church of this heretic. Each character has his/her role to play to shatter the protective shell surrounding Julian's soul. Miss Alice plays the short term, sham bride to Julian. The Butler's role is to falsely befriend Julian. The Lawyer gets to both unmask the Cardinal's sanctity and shoot Julian dead. Albee's view includes revealing the personal greed of the Cardinal in order to unmask the false communal authority that the Church exercises. Albee shows the Church's primary tenet to be the interpretation of God to its lay members.

The reader sees that Butler, Lawyer, Cardinal and Miss Alice are but will-less puppets being dangled by the Author's invisible strings. The only character with free will is Tiny Alice, i.e. Albee. Albee's premise is that to worship a God one must first create one. Julian's attempt to evade this truth first puts him in an asylum and finally gets him a bullet in the stomach. Where is Julian's God as he lies dying, praying to unseen Tiny Alice in the castle model? Albee shows that man's mind is but a tool whose function is to represent; man has no tool to access or to know God directly as Julian had wished to do. Death is the only reality to solve Julian's dilemma . The play ends with the lights in the model castle flickering out as Julian's life is extinguished. The world, both substance and form, is engulfed in total blackness.

This play is rather hard to understand at first (despite Edward Albee's belief that the play is "quite clear), but once you can make some sense of the play, it is absolutely thought-provoking and provocative. The ideas Albee raises about faith, God, and self-delusion go far beyond your standard reading fare.

the imagery is horrifyingly accurate... too close for comfor

I'll cut to the chase. Self-delusion is the title I chose for this review, because anyone who read this and pretended it was a profound eye-opening experience that revealed hard to grapple with truths about the contradictions in traditional theisms will need a ph.d in self-delusion. Albee, disappointingly proves that he has quite an aptitude for self-delusion if he believes as he seems to that this is a competent and wothwhile work. I sincerely believe that my rating of two stars was kind and was a benevolent gesture towards a playwright I have much respect for. Everyone is self-indulgent at times and so in a very Christian manner (Note the irony, uh oh is this indicator too cerebral and tedious? Guess it's because I just got through reading Tiny Alice.) I forgive the otherwise impeccable and inimitable Edward Albee.