Edward Albee was born in 1928 and at the age of two weeks was adopted by millionaire Reed Albee and his wife Frances. He was thrown out of several schools, and eventually left home at the age of 20 to live in Greenwich Village and become a writer.

He gravitated towards the theatre, and his first play, Zoo Story, built a cult following. Two years and several short plays later, his first full-length play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? took Broadway by storm. By no means a critical success, it nevertheless aroused a great deal of excitement, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and so shocked some of the committee that they refused to award it the prize. Half the drama panel resigned in protest, and the Prize was not awarded that year.

Nevertheless, Albee has won the Pulitzer Prize three times since: for A Delicate Balance in 1966, Seascape in 1975, and Three Tall Women in 1994. Surprising as it may seem, Three Tall Women is the only one of Albee's 25 or so plays to have opened to entirely positive criticism. It was first performed in Vienna in 1991, in New York in 1994 and its British premiere was in 1995.

Albee has tended otherwise to remain controversial and innovative as a playwright. Many of his plays have received poor receptions, perhaps because he plays around with dramatic forms, pushes against boundaries and challenges taboos. His most recent play to be seen in London was The Play About the Baby (Almeida 1998). A double bill of new work, Finding the Sun and Marriage Play, opens at the National Theatre in May.

Three Tall Women is unashamedly autobiographical. The central character is not merely based on, but basically is his adopted mother. The facts of her life that emerge are almost entirely true to reality, except only that the son in this play is not adopted. Albee was indeed thrown out of his mother's life for 20 years, largely because she could not come to terms with his homosexuality. They were to some extent reconciled for the last 20 years of her life (this play would suggest not very genuinely). Almost every tiny detail is true - right down to the fact that her husband had previously dated a tall comedienne who did the splits!

It has been a stimulating play to work on. For a piece that is essentially about the process of dying to have so much to offer in terms of humour and humanity is quite remarkable. Perhaps it is the theme of reconciliation, both real and imagined, inward and outward, true and false, that gives it at the same time its depth.

DAVID EMMET