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Edward Albee. For more than four decades the controversial playwright has shocked and tantalized. From “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” to “The Goat” or “Who is Sylvia”, his plays tackle taboos, from class to sex in its myriad forms. His characters let the emotional and raw humanity hang out in often ugly confrontations. Albee’s work helped transform the stage, poking the public in the gut. And in an age when theatre has been pushed to the sidelines of American culture, Albee still manages to unnerve, to force audiences to examine their own values and tolerances.

Now, with three Pulitzers and several Tony Awards to his name, Albee is at it again with a new play. The American Theatre: looking forward/looking back with Edward Albee.

Guests:

Edward Albee, Pulitzer and Tony Award winning playwright.

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Guests:

Award-winning playwright Edward Albee

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Imagine a society where men far outnumbered women … where women snapped up the cream of the crop, the ones with prospects, leaving millions of males roaming the countryside and cities without a mate. Well, we’re about to find out what that society would look like. In China, where a cultural preference for sons, combined with high and low technology sex-selection techniques is creating a unique population time bomb. In some of the poorest provinces there are already two boys born for every female child.

The question is, what will all these men without mates do with all that energy. In the past skewed sex ratios have led to violence, crime and social instability.

Guests:

Valerie Hudson, Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University and co-author of ‘Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population”

Susan Greenhalgh, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine

Rob Gifford, National Public Radio’s China Correspondent.