Fragments

Several people sit together reading proverbs aloud to each other. From these proverbs are prompted stories of each one's past, or musings surrounding life-long mysteries. Each tries to tell about some incident which they hope will illuminate their own being; hoping the others will understand who they are. Each story flows to the next, with a musical quality to the randomness. Albee explains it this way: "FRAGMENTS lacks plot in any established sense; there is no clear dilemma and resolution—no 'story,' no apparent sequentially. The piece proceeds as a piece of music does—accumulating, accumulating, following its own logic. Its effectiveness, its coherence reside in what we have experienced from the totality of it. FRAGMENTS is also a very simple, straightforward piece—on its own terms, of course."