A Delicate Balance

A Delicate Balance is a play by Edward Albee first produced on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on September 12, 1966. The production ran for four months, and won the author the first of his three Pulitzer Prize. The story revolves around the household of an old WASP couple (Agnes and Tobias) and the cohabiting Claire (Agnes' hard-drinking sister), who never passes up an opportunity to drink or to make a good joke at someone's expense (including her own). Their uneasy peace is disrupted first by the unexpected arrival of two old friends (Harry and Edna) -- fellow empty-nesters with free-floating anxiety who ask to stay with them to escape an unnamed terror -- and then by the arrival of their daughter Julia, whose fourth marriage has collapsed. The cast of the premiere production, directed by Alan Schneider, was headed by established theater legend Jessica Tandy, her husband Hume Cronyn and the accomplished Marian Seldes, who won that season's Tony Award for Best Performance by a... full article at wikipedia