The Theatre of Edward Albee PDF

The Theatre of Edward Albee Author(s): Lee Baxandall Reviewed work(s): Source: The Tulane Drama Review, Vol.
9, No. 4 (Summer, 1965), pp. 19-40 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1125030 . Accessed: 16/02/2013 09:00
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The Theatre of Edward Albee

By LEE BAXANDALL
Edward Albee's theatrecontinuesto be controversial. The discussion centersaround two questions: one has to do with truth, and the otherwith dramaticstructure. The first runs as follows: is the image of human relationsin AmericawhichAlbee presents justifiablebecause it is in some sense realistic,or is his an essentially flawed and pervertedpoint of view? The second is: are there valid grounds for the invented child in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the confusedevents which lead to Julian's death in Tiny Alice, or is Albee artistically callow and unable to structure a play properly? The Albee Family America Affluence is estranging America from herownideals.... It is pushthe policeman ing her intobecoming standing guardover vested interests. -Arnold J.Toynbee, America and theWorld Revolution The playis an examination of theAmerican Scene,an attackon the substitution of artificial forreal valuesin our society, a conofcomplacency, demnation emasculation and vacuity; it is a cruelty, standagainstthe fiction thateverything in thisslippingland of oursis peachy-keen. -Edward Albee, Preface to The American Dream What is the structureof Albee's theatre?His charactersare interrelated and cohesive fromplay to play; the heart definitely of his technique is an archetypalfamilyunit, in which the defeats, hopes, dilemmas,and values of our society(as Albee sees it) are tangiblycompressed. The device of course is as old as Greek of thisfamily is new. The economy tragedy; only the particularity of setting fortha concrete conflictto representmore abstract and even essentiallyundramatizable situations has always attracteddramatists. (Thus, with a sociologist'sinsight,C. Wright
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Mills stressedthat public issues erupt as private troubles.) In the family,then, a dramatistcan still find the conjuncture of and history. biography Three generationscompriseAlbee's archetypalfamily: Then, the epoch of a still-dynamic national ethic and vision; Now, a phase which breaks down into several tangentsof decay; and Nowhere,a darklyprophesiedfuturegeneration.Only two charactersare leftover fromThen: Grandma, and a paterfamilias or patriarch who is occasionally mentioned but never appears. These establish a polaritybased upon the axis of female and male principles.It has been oftenremarkedthat Grandma is the sole humane,generouscreaturein the Albee menage.She triesto relate to othersin a forthright and meaningfulfashion,but at her age she no longercommandsthe requisitesocial weight.The do not want Grandma involved in their others,her offspring, dubious lives. They ask her to stifleher "pioneer stock" values. Her pleas that she be put to use-"Beg me, or ask me, or entreat me... just anythinglike that"-are not heeded, because she is of a different epoch. She sums up the inheriting generation: "We live in an age of deformity. It's everyman forhimself around thisplace." The paterfamiliasrepresentsthe dynamic principle of the vanishing generation. In The Death of Bessie Smith, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Tiny Alice, his function as and primitiveaccumulator of wealth is described entrepreneur with awe, but he is never seen. He is the Mayor, the capricious tyrantof Memphis,in his time a capable and dynamicfigure"for the Mayor built this hospital"-but incompetentin his senility-"The Mayor is here with his ass in a sling,and the seat of governmentis now in Room 206." He remains the Mayor fromhis sick-bed;he continues to wield power, because for his Nor do youngerpersonsoffer a generationto do so is instinctual. The desires better than challenge. upcominggeneration nothing to serve the Mayor'spolitical machine or to creep to his bedside for small favors.His counterpartin Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is Martha's father,the College President.George speaks of him (ironically)as "a God, we all know that"; his mansion is
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nicknamed Parnassus and the whole facultydoes obeisance to an infinitely remote and super-poweredfigurewith a "great shockof whitehair,and thoselittlebeady eyes"like a mouse's-a man who "is the college" and "is not going to die." Miss Alice's fortune was accumulatedby a departed father. Time and again, it is the Robber Barons vs. the new Organization Men. The elder generation'smale was an energeticasocial titan. As reflectedin the paterfamilias and Grandma, an Americanethos is vanishing,an ethos that was purposive and energetic,regardless of whetherits humane or ruthless aspectscame momentarily to the fore.And whateverelse theywere, the announced values were real. The Now generationis also dominated by male and female Mommyand Daddy of The AmericanDream are the archetypes. most clear-cut representatives of this generation. Looking at them fromthe standpointof theirelders' values, it is apparent that Mommy provides the transitional figure. She, and not in practicalenterprise; she inheritsthe Daddy, takes an interest male aggressiveness. But although she delightsin power, she is glaringlyincompetentas the moral steward of her generation. immoderate,insincere,and inclined to hysteria, Mean-spirited, makes Mommy up with wildness what she lacks in confidence. to Long relegated a subordinatefamilyfunction,Mommy cannot instantlyacquire leadership qualities. Yet Daddy has abdicated, for some reason not apparent to her, and someone must govern. Mommy has several variants, emphasizing one or another aspect of her. Thus the ProfessionalWoman of The American Dream, Mrs. Barker, provides the grotesque caricature in the Mommygallery.She makes her way into areas once reservedfor men, diminishingas a human being with each triumph.Martha, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, has the essential Mommy traitsbut her characteris more complex; she understands her errant behavior even as she compulsivelycontinues it. Miss Alice, the capricious possessor of great wealth, is a Mommy too, and although she has an ineffectual impulse to "care" about people, she-like the Lawyer,who counsels her in
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"saved by dedication" to the cruel values of practical affairs--is her cultureand can grow"hard and cold" when Julian'slifeis at stake. What this "dedication" can imply, taken to an extreme,is shown by the Nurse in The Death of Bessie Smith. Nurse, though not yet married,is the meanest of the Mommies. Her neurotic and anti-intellectual political attitudes add a sinister dimension to the composite Mommy portrait. Nurse admires "counts for something Franco, whose opinion, like her father's, And she is sadistic. refusedto put special." Having vehemently her life on a rational basis, Nurse is prone to hysterical outlets. She could tearthe tissueof civilization: I am sickof everything in thisstupid, world.I am sick fly-ridden of thedisparity between as they shouldbe! are,and as they things to people on the phone in thisdamn ... I am sickof talking stupidhospital.... I am sickof the smellof Lysol..... I am sick of goingto bed and I am sickof waking up.... I am tiredof the truth...I am tired of myskin.... I WANT OUT! This is irrational apocalyptic politics: the voice of the bigot and potential fascist. Why does Albee attributethese tendencies to Mommy, who for him symbolizescontemporary power in America? The firstdispute over Albee comes to a head here. Does his representation of Mommy really suggestsome importanttruth? Or is it thedistorted of an injuredman? revenge In the first as a place, Mommy political symbolis ambiguous. She representsan emergentforce in society,and does anyone doubt that women have strikingly improved their social and economic lot in recent years,that they have gained more professionaland managerial positions,hold more property, exercise more real control in the home and community? Is it then suritself prisingthat a socially advancing group fails to distinguish by urbane reasonableness?In everyrevolutionpower has been accrued firstand its judicious use learned later. On the other hand, is it not likelythat Albee wishesMommyto represent the political tendencyof the nation ratherthan of simplyone sex? We are left uncertain,for,because of his reliance on a family he places on woman's role, Albee's mythand the construction remains somewhat blurred.Mommymay offer political meaning
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a commentupon power in America.Don't we findin American foreignpolicy some of the traitsattributedto Mommy?Didn't America suddenlyrise to world power and responsibility during World War II? Didn't it have to adapt suddenly from an isolationist past? And hasn't there been much comment on the to an "other-directed" transformation froman "inner-directed" is substantially personality typein America?If thisinterpretation correct,judgments made on Albee's lack of objectivityabout at the least. womenneed qualification, what is left to Mommyhas taken over the male prerogatives; traitsand the variants Daddy? He has none of his predecessors' of his type are defined by whether they oppose the present passively or with active negation; they have no hope for the future.Daddy trails off toward the Nowhere generation; it is often unclear whetherhe is Mommy'shusband or son. Indeed he is best discussedin connectionwith the Nowhere generation, since he and theyboth behave infantilely. The most passive of the Daddies is in The Sandbox and The AmericanDream; he no longer "bumps his uglies" on Mommy or disputes her power, except in quibbles which she enjoys. Whether this Daddy is even employed is uncertain.Surely he is not imaginative.His dreams of becoming a senator,winninga Fulbrightscholarship, or leaving Mommy'sapartment are ludicrous.George,the history in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, representsthe professor No less futile he strenuously opposite pole. practically, produces and other "fun and situations, jokes, games"-imaginative avenues away from despair. Among the youngermales the two in The American Dream show once again, very clearly, the weight Albee gives to this axis. Only one of the youthsactuallyappears. The passive-active other,we learn,was the identicaltwinof this"AmericanDream" and died while an infant, just monthsafterMommyand Daddy him. Both twins are homosexually oriented, making adopted comment an emasculated and narcissisticnasymbolic upon tional vision. Grandma says that the dead twin had been sensiand indomitable, with a wildness which made tive, resentful, him unbearable to Mommy-who at last mutilated the boy's genitals.She would have murderedhim, had he not cheated her
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by dying first.The passive twin is, by contrast,welcome in home and, it seems,in her bed. Mommy's The other Albee males can be located in relation to these with a sensibility so unbridled poles. In The Zoo Story,Jerry, is a counterpart of the twin that he eventuallydestroys himself, who died, just as the docile conformistPeter is kin to the "AmericanDream," the twinwho lived. The polarizationin The Death of Bessie Smith, though less focussed,appears in the obsessedInternand an obsequious betweenan erotically contrast In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the conformist orderly. of triumphfor the IBM male. In Tiny A lice, Nick is a forecast Julian is an imaginativesaint with a mission,while the other men passively dissolve into their social roles. This is not so terriblefor the butler,whose name, afterall, is Butler; Albee suggeststhat the man's genuine capacities (as society has deto the servingrole veloped them) do not stand in contradiction he plays. The situationof the Cardinal and Lawyeris otherwise. Though they are well educated, their personalitiesare determined by their social roles and theyhave no names but their functions. These men have in a sense chosen to be typesrather than individuals; yet the Cardinal is also provided with a biography which might stand as the classic explanation of why Albee's passive males are that way: his fatherwas a "profiteer," whored around ratherthan instill him his motherirresponsibly with life values. Even his paternityis in doubt. Thus, lacking tangible origins or values, the Cardinal in craven bafflement "worshipsthe symbolnot the substance" and takes the Father proposed by the Church. He will in turn perpetuate symbols oversubstance. There will,of course,be no offspring. In the two most recentplays,a femaleof the thirdgeneration also appears. One is Honey, Nick's wife, who has numerous no childnaive dodges aimed at gettingfree of responsibility: or for her! as the more She have abdicates, bearing growingup sensitiveAlbee males. Albee does not say why Honey follows the road of inner emigration,but one may guess that she is appalled by what maturitywould require her to be and do. With the example of Mommybeforeher, she defendsher childlike looks and innocence through doses of unwittinghysteria
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and knowledgeable abortion: she will not further thisvector of in Alice not does but history! Honey'scounterpart Tiny appear, we hearabout herfrom who was fascinated Julian, by herdurin theasylum. This woman, like Honey, is infertile ing hisyears and at the same timehysterically focussed on pregnancy. ("A womanwho, on veryinfrequent believed that she occasions, was the VirginMary.")She calls upon God in eroticcadences, withthe beliefthatshe will deliver goes into falsepregnancy
the Son of God-and dies fromcancer of the womb. Symbolically, this is the fate of all who do not choose, as Julian does, active martyrdom-whoinstead staywith "the same uproar, the evasions"of sterility. Thus it ends. Albee's Americanfamilyundergoesanxietyand terrible barrennessas it staggersinto decay. A few fugitives detach themselves and seek solutions in aesthetics.They watch a historicaldream wither.What is the core of Albee's viewpoint? The generationsmove away frompracticality toward emasculation; away fromthe energeticbut amoral use of power toward an amoral but inoperativeuse of power. A frightened populace afraid to articulateits genuine creatingillusoryvalues; a country but shoddyrules of conduct; and a handful of males stimulated to imaginativeactivity of a high order. George'smental purview has little in common with Daddy's sigh, "I just want to get over with,"and the Intern'slewd unrealized fantasies everything are nearly as alien to him. George's escape into imaginationis thesole solutionAlbee propoundsto the national condition.
Out of the Family into Symbolic Transcendence all dedicated I, thus ends, neglecting worldly To closeness and thebettering ofmy mind Withthat butbybeing soretired, which, all popularrate,in myfalsebrother O'er-prized Awaked an evilnature; ...
-Prospero in The Tempest
The form of an Albee play derives from some characters' viable imaginativepower to forceevents,not towardhistorically solutions, but at least into channels which are telling and satisfying symbolically.
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The Zoo Story,Albee's first in play, uses this artisticstrategy showing the struggle by Jerry-who has cultivated his sensibut has paid for it with social failure-to bility and integrity make significantcontact with a man called Peter, who is a Other formsof contact proving imsuccess and a conformist. at Peter into causing his death by last Jerry provokes possible, but a brute,desperateact, yet This be might nothing stabbing. it becomes much more because it is instilledwith rich overtones of the circumstances which made Jerry abstain from the social order. He has gone out of the family,and he symbolically it by showing Peter why, throughthe particularsof transcends his death. Albee's formal cunning can be seen, beneath the colloquial language and precise detail, in his bold and intricatesense of rather the way music is," organization."Plays are constructed he has said, and a lifetimelove of music and friendshipwith has preparedhim forbuilding a strongskeletonunder composers the alluring flesh.For example, the associationsevoked by the characters'names in The Zoo Story bring out the polarity of these third-generation males. Peter of course is Greek for rock; stand. he is, as Christ bid, the rock on which the institutions existentialists who live inauthentic exist(The depict persons ences as being the equivalent of stones,rocks,and trees.)Jerry, like Jeremiah, denounces the falsegods of his day. Thus we are the names alone, for Jerry's prepared,by dying whisper to the of "I came unto conformity, apostle you.., .and you have comforted me ... Dear Peter." of Beyond the force of names is the sheer suggestiveness sounds. Take the handling of the vocal "O." It becomes,by the element.Early,thereis Peter's play's conclusion,an architectonic and disinterested "Oh?" answersthe as he polite unresponsively It is often of his studied and is a token used, importunate Jerry. to lives presentedto him outside routine channels. indifference Half-waythroughthe play, however,Peter in distressswitches to "Oh my; oh my." Jerrytosses back, "Oh your what?" and keeps talking-the "Oh" rises more urgentlyto Peter's lips. Jerryis stabbed, and Peter howls, "many times,very rapidly," "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God--..." in total incom-
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to which Jerry replieswith "a combinationof scornprehension, ful mimicryand supplication," "Oh ... my... God," and dies. A sound has been imbued with the anguish of the conforming man understress. units in this play, the fable about Among the medium-sized the landlady and the obscene dog, for example, is built along the lines of a music-hallsketch. Elsewhere in the Albee plays one can discern arias, duets, and fugues.So much is fairlyobvious. The over-all symbolicconstruction of the plays is more still using The Zoo Story complex and deservesclose attention, as our model. At the start of this section, I quoted Prospero's explanation of how he studied those esoteric subjects for which the world condemned him. The black arts enabled him, in an isolated place away from vested society,to control all events to his hermiticsatisfaction.For those Albee characterswith extraordinary imaginative powers, mattersare similar: in large part theydeterminethe course and outcome of the symbolicactions in which theyare willingto participate. Of course,the differences from The Tempest are important.The powers grantedAlbee's can be called magical only as a metaphorof efficacy; at figures the same time, the physical and social sciences have steamrollered personalityso that there seems little left to man's initiative which does not play into the game of those forces thatcrushintegrity and sensibility. It is in this perspectivethat Albee chooses heroes who use essentiallyaestheticmeans to improvethe quality of theirlives. Bessie Smith is a working artist; Julian, Jerry,and George build imaginative worlds which provide meaning. Two other Grandma at the conclusionof The AmericanDream characters, and Jack,who bringsBessie Smith'scorpse into a white hospital though he knows she is already dead, are rather ordinary in situations of extremeinpersons who transcendthemselves Albee to the world of effete these condignity. opposes figures much from world, formity-a incidentally, changed Shakespeare's, which beckoned to nearly every man with seeminglyendless possibilities.An era which produced as heroes Tamburlaine, Faustus, Richard III, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus,
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hardly could bring forthfromits greatestdramatista hero who surrogateto practical triumphs;at least not until the preferred end of his career darkened Shakespeare's view. The notable thing about Albee is that, writing late in the epoch which Shakespeare heralded, fromthe "island" which some think was the model forthatin The Tempest,he setsout with the premises on which Shakespeare ended, as though there were no others. The resort to fantasyhas become a priori to practical living. Man is from birthon thatdesertedisle-with Caliban. in having exceptional George, and Julian are foremost Jerry, powers of symbolic transcendence.These powers are in life used at various levels of awareness and skill by many persons, even seeming conformists. Passive noncompliance with certain social normsmay,when sustained,amount to symbolicnegation. More advanced forms are seen in acts of sabotage: pranks, vandalism,riots,the remainsof lunches that Detroit auto workers sometimes cornerof the cars theymake. deposit in a difficult Works of art may provide a lucid, transformed expressionof the but impulse. Its point is always not only to relieve frustration also to mock or make manifestsome absurdity or indignity inherent in thesituation. Thus Jerry the good citizen Peter; by his death incriminates has plotted the entire devious developmentof the action. Jerry Probably he had sought and failed to become a writer.In this instancehis talentsare cunning: "sometimesa person has to go a verylong distanceout of his way to come back a shortdistance and relentless: "don't react, Peter, just listen." He correctly," flauntshis superiority over a man whom societyhas awarded the merit badges; he hopes also, and quite desperately, to find some understanding fromhim. Should Peter respond,the bitter conclusions drawn in isolation will be disproved and the rebel can live. Yet Jerryhas from the start little hope, and Peter does not admit awarenesseven when faced with Jerry's major the parable of the dog, which bringsforthonly an indigeffort, nant "I don't understand!" To admit awareness would force Peter to change values and reject the status he has dearly bought. He lies. And Jerry, weary of the indecisive encounters with the Peters,decides for once upon an indelible communica-
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tion. "You fight,you miserable bastard," he cries, "fightfor that bench; fightfor your parakeets; fightfor your cats; fight for your two daughters;fight for your wife; fight for your manhood, you pathetic little vegetable (spits in Peter's face), You couldn't even get your wife with a male child." Each move is calculated. Jerryknows how to dissolve the aplomb of this matterto induce Peter to seize antagonist,and it is no difficult the knife and hold it thrustout while Jerry, runningupon it, dies. There is symbolicrichnessin this tableau of death. On the face of it, Jerry is relieved of his unremitting conflict with the Peters. The social process of life-destroying forces in stealthy forcesbecomes public and accountconquest of life-enhancing "You won't be comable; Peter can no longer deny complicity. back been more, Peter; any you've ing dispossessed"-robbed of certitudeabout his way of life. An audience, should it include Peters, vicariously might be as shaken, as dispossessed. This retribution alone can gratify He is so set on broadening Jerry. Peter's awarenessthat he urges him to gatherhis wits and flee before a policeman can come, for it would be futile for the Peters of societyto punish Peter; his imaginationmust do the work. Then Peter may no longer be Peter. This is the primary importof thedeath. violence and his strategy are like those of American Jerry's urban juvenile gangs. The gang membersfeel themselves outcasts; with no other outlets, they turn to destructivebut significantacts. Two gangs battling for a turfare struggling for like the in can that, bench, something park reality "belong" to neither. And while they, like Jerry, Peter with their maydislodge thevictory is Pyrrhic-thatis,symbolic. knives, From another perspective, death is erotic.Jerry withJerry's drew from "normal" sex when he rejected conformist social goals, and it seems mixed up in his mind with the other "normal" activities he despises. Occasional sordid contacts with women and daily encounters with his obscene landlady (another reinforce his Mommy) queasiness. Peter's domesticatedheterois of what affronts and as he throws himself sexuality part Jerry, onto the blade in Peter's hand he spears himselfon erect sex,
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and fascinatingbecause institutional.The irony is terrifying that Peter's way of life scarcelyhas prepared him to perform this duty, and he would not have held the blade out if Jerry had not assaulted the root of his honor: property is rights. Jerry the more capable male; in the real encounterhe plays the active partner. The patternis of deliberatesymbolicadventures which unveil of and are to repugnant aspects society symbolically satisfying the doer. Albee develops this pattern in two ways. The less effective is found in The American Dream and The Death of Bessie Smith. In these plays a situationis slowlybuilt up like a is sprung suddenly,at the end. mosaic, and the transcendence Grandma and Jack provide brilliant curtain effects, but this has a bad effect on the total structure. We do not see strategy the charactersdevelop or change (except for the franticrevelations provided by the arrival of Bessie Smith's corpse) and the nature of the finaltranscendence is obscure. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?... The scene is a small New England academic community. Martha is the daughterof the college president and her husband, is a One George, historyprofessor. night theyreturnlate from a facultyparty and begin an orgy of verbal sado-masochism. Aftertearingat each other'sdignityand illusions,theyturn on a new facultycouple, Nick and Honey, whom Martha has invited for a nightcap. Martha takes Nick to bed, but he is impotent; meanwhile George has retreated to the disinvolved recessesof his imagination, fromwhich he is able to kill his and Martha's most precious shared illusion, the myth supposed to that they have a provide a measure of symbolictranscendence: son. In this mayhem,George is the catalyst,determiningthe nature and scope of their "fun and games" and guiding the about thechild. pivotalstory What is the contextof George's actions?Is it merelya quaint college town? The stage setting of the New York production It showed implicated the entireAmerican educated community. a tastefulhome, with fitted, recessedbookshelves, hi-fi, curtains, oak beams,a wroughtfireplace, earlyAmericanperiod furniture,
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iron colonial eagle, an American flag queerly reversed,an impressionistpainting over the mantel-the comfortsof modern tokensof the revolutionary living side by side with rough-hewn but them: American an House of Intellect. dominating past, and Martha are what has become of the Washingtons; George lived "over the that have they they quip past couple of cenAmerican intelturies" in this place. George is a symptomatic the most all Albee's and the lucid of heroes best adjusted lectual, He and Julian are the only Albee heroesemto his predicament. he ployed by an institutionof society.As a historyprofessor, has a wider perspectivethan the average man. He is an insider as well as an outsider,and his situation permitshim-far more than Jack,Jerry, the "AmericanDream," or Grandma-to bare theproblemsof conformists and malcontents equally. failures are his own choice. He was not George's practical born incompetent. Martha tells an anecdote about George's refusal to join a sparring match with her father,the college president, during the wartimefitness-program days; Martha took a playful poke at George then, and he went down. He has refused to assume the organization-man etiquette that would "He'd be no good at qualify him as her father'sheir-apparent. trustee's dinners, fundraising,"Martha notes accurately. "He didn't have any personality,you know what I mean?" What really was objectionable was George's insistenceon his right to individuality; given the situation, he had little choice but to choose futility. freely Like the other Mommies, Martha is an apotheosis of consumerism. With her teeth "like a cocker spaniel," she chews up ice cubes, drinks, George, the young men of the faculty.She describes her dilemmawithimagesfrom themovies: BetteDavis comeshomefrom a hardday at the grocery store... she'sa housewife; she buysthings...and shecomes homewiththe .and she putsthegroceries "What down,and she says, groceries.., a dump!"... she's discontent. Martha isn't stupid. She is capable of criticizing her own actions, and she can be very affectionate. But she can have no realistic hope of becoming more than a DiscontentHousewife while her
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imaginationremainsderivative.For although the general situation of "liberated"Americanwomen depends on no one woman, it is only throughconcreteanalysisof her own life that any one woman can escape Martha's indefinablefrustrations. Again, the crucial. is imagination Conformist, neurotic,the wave-of-the-future couple, repressed, Nick and Honey, lack the passionate energythat would enable them to control theirown fates.Like theirlives, theirmarriage Nick is bright,a has been "taken for granted." Unfortunately, in the hope of who with chromosomes biologist experiments that troubles human to intention order-an creating types humanist George. This expert in the routine of an impersonal science is lost in Martha and George's highlyfantasizedworld. Since Nick and Honey base theirlives on unexamined illusions, George is able in no time to reduce their marriage to obscene "I hate hypocrisy." dust,remarking, took George up talk afterhe allowed Martha's fatherto block of his first novel. Martha and George are verygood publication indeed in their repartee; like commedia dell'arte zanies, they repeatedlyenact scenes. George is the more devastatinglyinbut Martha,once offand running, is the more swinishly ventive, She achieves barbarisms that aesthetic George must effective. insult with avoid. Yet George plays the game of withering deftly all his being,forimaginationis all he has, while Martha regards the combat as a mere escape-valvefor emotionsfirmly rooted in her consumer mentality.This difference becomes clear in the scene where Martha encouragesNick to "hump the hostess."At first she gives George numerouschances to stop her-any sign of would do it. Why does George prefer compassion or generosity to turn to a book? Given his immense stake in the values of lucidity and imagination,he cannot do otherwise:despite the anguish of the moment,George delightsin the image of himself reading while Martha sweats in bed upstairs,for this symbolic revelation of their distinct modes of fleeingthe world is too splendid! AfterMartha's attemptedinfidelity, George, who had left the with a bunch of snapdragons which he hurls house, re-enters like spears at Martha and Nick: small phalli of his graceful to symbolic revenge. In this one scene, George's commitment
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imaginarydeeds is completelyvisible. Martha pleads that the adultery didn't really come off,but George keeps hurling the snapdragons. She cries, "Truth or illusion, George. Doesn't it matterto you?" And George hurls anotherstalk. The truthfor Martha is in the act. For George,intention is the truth. Thus we come to the question of whetherthe inventedchild is an artisticerror.Since George (and, to a lesser extent,Martha) is both motivatedand giftedenough to sustain that myth,my answeris obvious. Sterile in so manyways,theycannot live with their sterility.With the child, George achieves-if only in "in spite of history" fantasy-his crazywish to perpetuatehistory and to keep it under his controla littlelonger.The fantasy-baby gives Martha someone all her own, to use any way she wants, just as countless women have used their actual children. The motives are not extraordinary, although the resources George to the and his final exorcismof the fantasy are. brings project At the Masque Theatre in New York, shortlyafter the play opened, Albee was asked what he thoughtof O'Neill's message in The Iceman Cometh that life-illusions are necessary.He rethat felt he had O'Neill a made plied verystrongcase, but that in the run it was for best long perhaps people to tryto live with the truth.The tensionbetweentruthand illusion is at the heart of Albee's plays. That so many criticscondemned the invented child is a commenton the American tendencyto respectonly the pragmatic and down-to-earth, and to distrustthe abstract and intangible.This is the audience's problem,not Albee's-he is entitled to any aestheticmeans that work,and this "device" of the child works. However, Albee has been acutely aware of his problems in communicating;his responsehas been to allow directors,chieflyAlan Schneider, to stress the matter-of-fact from possibilitiesin the scripts, keeping the Broadwaycustomers the full aesthetic, moral,and intellectualdifficulties. confronting But there are side-effects, among them the loss of a perspective in whichthe moreaudacious "devices"could be understood.
... Tiny Alice
to live by sustainedeffort Tiny Alice again shows a character's values. this the first Albee is However, imagined play in which the formof the symbolictranscendence is expressedfromwithin.
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said and enacted--erotic and ascetic, matter-of-fact Everything and fantastic, incisiveand elusive-is Brother Julian'srevery. scene is a struggle This is not immediately apparent. The first over Julian's fate between the forcesof humane concern and material temptation; the fight is rigged, as the Cardinal is Miss Alice and her scarcelymore humane than his temptors, a for Offered $100,000,000 year Lawyer. twentyyears in return for sending Julian-apparently once his lover-to Miss Alice, the Cardinal hardlyhesitates.His Church career dominateshim even when the pistol is finallyraised to kill Julian. As tor the Lawyer, the Cardinal is right to describe him as a hyena who tearsopen at the anus the carrionit findsalong the trail of the real predators.(I might add that writersfrom Freud on have discussedanalityas thebasis of the capitalistethos.) The battle betweenthe Cardinal and the Lawyer is livelybut unfair,because whateverits basis in real events it is now occurringin Julian's mind, and is rehearsedonly to show cause for Julian's drive toward martyrdom.Critics have generally liked this opening section, but they have failed to grasp the play's development.Tiny Alice has the logic peculiar to sexual revery;it is compulsive,ambiguous, and obsessivein its events as well as in its language. As Julian tremulously nears the suband of fantasized heart his jective experience,the semblance of rational causation fades. The reveryaccompanies orgasm or is its sublimatedcounterpart. But as We cannot guess this at first. the morningsunlightfades into the dark recessesof spirit and the senses the imagerybegins to equivocate between gross sensuality and soaring asceticism,and we begin to understand. Then all lightvanishes; the "mouse in the model" on stage-an emblematicJulian-dies. The breath and heartbeat of Julian, or whoeveris imaginingall this,resound to everycornerof the theatre-this is how we hear our own vital organswhen relaxing into sleep or, I suppose,death. In the initial claritythe males included the Lawyer,a hated who has been Mommy'slover and now schemesto father-figure do the dreamerharm, and the Cardinal, who was the beloved but has succumbed to the despicable values of the father-figure.
LEE
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EnterMommy mostpowerful as theworld's woman. At first she but soon seemsa dreadful she becomes seductive. These hag, and terrifying to a rising flood exhilarating changes correspond of emotion in and not Sexual memories recollected, tranquility. and hallucinations as thelanguage toward pour forth fragments or erotic caress. A stable with hairgrandiose symbolism groom tufts on his thumbs; muchtalkof hairon muscled men'sbacks; images of penetration by a gladiator'sthumbs, by a lion's the haunt all He recounts the claws,by Holy Spirit, Julian. of woman the in the who the speech asylum implored divinity to enterher, a speech climaxedby her verbal "ejaculation" The (saysJulian),afterwhich all subsidedinto nothingness. microcosm of theplay'sform is in thatspeech. In turn, a climax to Julian'srevery-hisejaculation-comeswhen the Lawyer fires into the dreamer's and the martyr abdomen, collapsesas "blood" spreadsover his groin.The otherfigures, now unimleave.The saintis alone withhis pain and ecstasy; his portant, theimagining reaches itsepiphany. throb; organs This is symbolic with a vengeance. transcendence But, alit in the play makes though is grounded masturbatory fantasy, statements about thenature of thattranscendence and powerful the worldwhichinducessome to attempt it. Essentially, Tiny Alice asserts no values other than those men create.Life is which men edit into "mystery," the purposesthey "chance," create forthemselves. The Cardinalurges what Julianto "accept "We do not know anything," but a you do not understand." man can develophis "specialpriesthood" "an act of although
faith is required." It is better to "accept" a course leading to saintlinessthan, like the Cardinal and the Lawyer, to become We all are "instrusymbol rather than symbolic transcender. ments"whose value, though self-chosen, is conferred fromwithout; it is best to elude the trappingsof material power and to answer"How will I know thee,Oh Lord?" with "By my faith!" For, as Julian says,"My faithand my sanity-they are one and the same." All of us are waiting"until the pelvic cancer comes." But to follow one's individual idea of meaningfulexistence, "not losing God's light,but joining it to my own," is the secret
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of "how to come out on top, going under." Since "consciousness is pain" and all go under, says Albee, why not at least shape yourown path?And he givesus Julian. We are in the land of a strangemetaphysics, communicated "mental sex and with the through play" godhead a woman who he requiresher to be. becomes,for the pilgrimmartyr, anything Thus Alice is actually "somethingverysmall enclosed in something else" (Albee to Newsweek). That "else" is at firsther institutionalwealth. Then, as Julian moves toward saintliness, Alice becomes the Bride of Christ.As he dies, she cradleshim in her arms, deliberately in the pose of Michelangelo's Pieta'. as his nemesis,haunting him with Julian has created her, first childhood terrors; then, in his triumphantapostate, she becomesElysium. Supporting Julian's web of associations is a neo-Platonic "philosophy"of appearance and substancewhich Albee takes as a metaphorof symboland substancein social and aestheticlife. Made concreteon stage in the model of the mansion with its reflection of outside events, this static systemintelmysterious lectualizes and extrudeswhat is-and should have remainedimplicitin Albee's art.Yet it is not hard to see whyAlbee wished to elaborate it. His plays are allegoriessaying"this is the essence of how it is"; that is the functionof his family.The Cardinal providesa good example of what this methoddoes and does not achieve. In the Masque Theatre discussion,Albee talked about Brecht's Galileo, which he had seen at the Berliner Ensemble. The scene of the Cardinal-turned-Pope being dressedwhile the at him for Inquisitor keeps permission to show Galileo the torture instruments had particularly Albee. The meanimpressed of the Brecht is in its scene, however, ing process: as more and more garments of the Papal authority are placed over his of the faithful shoulders,and as the footsteps continue without of his obligationsto an office cease, the man's consciousness and situationbecomes overpowering. In contrast, Albee's Cardinal is never capable of choice; allegory rather than process unfolds; the Cardinal merelydoes what Albee a priori deems necessary to his office;and where Brecht had shown a specificopportunity for a knowing man to exercise a social functionwith more or
LEE
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37
or humanity, less rigidity Albee builds a metaphysic while man freedom within a socialrole. TinyAliceoffers one denying of the purestrecentembodiments of the enticing notionthat man is born freeand enchained No wonderAlbee by society. has difficulty the of men within institutheir showing dynamics aesthetic tions,and tendsto come up withmarginal "notes," to thedamage ofhisart. Findings is without American Albeethesatirist peeramong playwrights as he crisply destructive values the mediumof negates through His abilityto affirm his family. is limitedby values,however, unconscious of that of some attitudes consensus acceptance very in otherrespects, he scorns and by thefamily structure he uses so wellforscorn. He also is too closeto his heroes, so thatwhen he goesbeyond his language satire thickens intosolemn rhetoric. At the crucialmoments-toreturn to theproblems withwhich I began thisessay-Albeeis neither untruthful nor unskillful. But taking the playsin theirentirety, whatAlbee despises provides for hisdrama; whathe hopesis toooften chaff. yeast The basisof Albee'saffirmation is stated by George, speaking to Nick: "You disgust and you're me on principle, a smugson of a bitchpersonally, but I'm trying to give you a survival kit. continues:
and George
DO YOU HEAR ME?" Nick replies, "UP YOURSI"
You take the trouble to construct a civilization... to... to build a society, based on the principles of... of principle... you endeavor to make communicablesense out of natural order,morality out of the unnatural disorderof man's mind.., .you make government and art, and realize that theyare, must be, both the same... you bringthingsto the saddest of all points..,.to the point where there is something to lose.., .then all at once, through all the music,throughall the sensiblesounds of men building,attempting, comes the Dies Irae. And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours.I suppose there'sjustice to it, afterall the years...Up yours.
The playwright's wit fall away; the grimaceand defensive wicked is uttering a Liberal'scautions. Government is a sybarite
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Tulane Drama Review
form of art and art a means of government. The world goes around because of work, principle, morality. This world is threatenedby the moral vacuity of the Nicks and-what? As Georgerefills Nick's glasshe tellsus: Here we are... ice for the lamps of China, Manchuriathrown in. To Nick. You better watchthoseyellowbastards, mylove... amused. aren't don't they Why youcomeoverto our side,and we'll blowthehellout of 'em.Then we can splitup themoney between us and be on easystreet. Whatd'yasay? is quite serious.The West has somehow George,thoughsarcastic, allowed the Chinese to grow militant as it goes slack, and resistanceto the "yellow bastards" is in order. Their threatening independencemight be put down if America could recoup purpose and unity,and overseas wealth would pour in as before. The meaning of the passage is unequivocal, and casts new light on Albee's championingof pioneer attitudes.Apparently he also favors the Liberal principle of building America by exploitingother peoples: Spanish, French,Mexicans, and above all the Negro and the Indian. George's speech bristleswith ugly fear in the face of change. Nor is George alone in expressing this hostilityto the aspirations of others. The Nurse in The Death of Bessie Smith also resists such change-again, her speech is not in an ironical contextwhich would "criticize"it, as was her "sickof civilization"speechcitedearlier,forexamplewhen she envisions with a shudder a Negro "millenium" and "a great black mob marchingdown the street,banners in the air." Tiny Alice has nothingbut cliche cynicisms to offer on the of radical social dictator was a once colonel topic change. "Every who vowed to retire,once the revolutionwas over" and "it is easy to postpone elections." Alice even gives money to some and other reliable revolutions, along with churches, symphonies, institutions.One wonders how the example of the American revolution can have been lost on such "thinking,"unless the cause be present-day chauvinism. Yet Albee's terrorof other people's rebellious autonomy is of a piece with the American Liberal outlook; now, especially,it blinds one to the agenciesof historical affirmation. Thus George:
LEE BAXANDALL
39
can't When abidethings as they when can't abide are, they people thepresent, do one of twothings... either turn to a they they ofthepast, as I havedone, or they setaboutto... contemplation toalter the future. His distastefor the latterdirection is expressed in a phrase from drawn Martha's sexualconduct: "Whenyouwantto change something.., youBANG! BANG! BANG!" Leftas he is without to thefuture, Albee doorways acceptable mustend hisAmerican in sterility. This limits inevitably family his rangeas a dramatist. "The discord between thepresent and thepast,"as Chekhov of all feltin thefamily," said,"is first yet ifone'simagery endsthere, without theworlds ofplay, exploring and work,human potentialscarcely can be known. struggle, Albee has depicteda hospital, a beach,a Cardinal'sresidence, relations foreach.If theplaysare remain yetfamily paramount to be believed, will in of symbolic end the aestheticism history transcendence. will of will say and continue, course, History about limits the of Albee's dramatic vision. something Drama is themostsocially of thearts, rooted and aestheticism as an affirmation has neverbeen wholly comfortable on stage. Because Albee is so incapable of historical he affirmations, too closelywithhis symbolic identifies transcenders and loses aesthetic distance. These difficulties becomeaudiblein George's rhetoric when he is serious:the sparkof slang goes and his speechbecomesamazingly opaque. This is even more truein since all the characters' Alice, Tiny languageis projectedin mind and can be turned into Julian's drycant. Tired, unfelt about the Human Condition abound, ritually commonplaces uttered for substitutes realhuman conditions enacted in history. In Tiny Alice a finalproblem also comesto a head, caused of his heroes. by Albee'suncritical presentation Julian'simagiwhichcreates the action, is too homosexual forgeneral nation, or Most uniapplication comprehension. plays "compromise in the other and fantasize direction; versality" theygeneralize about existence withan implicit heterosexuality just as narrow, and just as blandlydisregard the otherside of sexuality. However,thougha homosexual some make may viewpoint special it is lessgenerally contribution, valid,balanced,and embracing thanis the best pondered heterosexual outlook, givena world
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Tulane Drama Review
in which the homosexual still is despised and persecuted. It and effectively expressed-Genet's Our Lady may be intensively as as well shows what remarkable the Alice, Flowers, of Tiny art is thus engendered.But as a rule art gains when a writer pleads neitherthe homosexual nor the heterosexualvision, but and ironyfor both. The homomaintains a nice understanding sexual vision is not in itselfdebilitating; what hurts is not to have it setin thebroadestperspective.
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Eugenfe Leontovich, distinguished actress, hasjoined the ofthe faculty Goodman Theatre School ofDrama toteach advanced acting anddirecting.
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The Theatre of Edward Albee Author(s): Lee Baxandall Reviewed work(s): Source: The Tulane Drama Review, Vol.

The Theatre of Edward Albee

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

DO YOU HEAR ME?" Nick replies, "UP YOURSI"

Tulane Drama Review

Tulane Drama Review

GOODMAN THEATRE MEMORIAL

ii ,nz~ a s1 1~B s :Ia --_i-i;ii~:: iiii -? ?~ i D 1 j n

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