A Delicate Balance is Albee`s most blatant staging of the existentialistpredicament. He does not chart cataclysmic changes. He intimates the subtleshift in human relationships, shifts from commitment to estrangement, fromlove to indifference. The play concerns the way in which "we submerge ourtruths and have our sunsets on untroubled waters." The plot`s lack of actionperfectly captures the spiritual inertia that has gradually ossified this family.A Delicate Balance very much concerned with the portions of man`s collectiveunconscious that allows terror, or the "the plague," as Agnes calls it, to becometangible though seemingly undefinable force. It is appropriate, therefore, formuch of the action to occur at night, the time when darkness prevails, whenthe "demons" emerge, when the characters of A Delicate Balance experiencean existential encounter. Through the course of the weekend the playersexperience all hallmarks of existentialist predicaments only to fail in theiropportunities to salvage their lives in qualitative therms. They consciouslychoose to maintain the delicate balance which tragically preserves their vitallies.