Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

STUDIES - Péter Egri: From the British Grotesque To the American Absurd: the Dramatist's Dilemma

him, he gains a queer, mechanical and marionette-like quality. Communication is difficult. Communion is doubtful. The fusion of the real and unreal is a characteristic feature of Albee's plays written before and after Everything in the Garden as well. If a work of art is basically a sensuous values judgement, then "the substitution of artificial for real values"

1

0 may logically lead to the absurd merger of the real and the unreal (Mommy's beige or wheat-coloured little hat, Grandma's neatly wrapped and tied boxes and Day-Old Cake, a bundle or bumble of joy in The American Dream; the death of the fantasy child in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; the implications and consequences of Harry's and Edna's fear in A Delicate Balance; the cube in Box and the incongruously patterned yet ingeniously counterpointed stylistic stereotypes in Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung). Richard's hand-mower in Everything in the Garden is a link in this chain. Bernard's motor-mower is just a tool. Esposition: the Americanization of stakes, risks and dimensions. Prostitution as a symbol of social status As the plays progress, differences increase. The exposition in Cooper's drama ranges over the whole of the first act, while in Albee's play it only covers the first scene of the first act: Cooper presents the milieu in more minute detail, whereas Albee builds the plot more dynamically. The first section of the exposition reveals the narrow financial position of the protagonists. Jenny in Cooper, with a touch of sentimentality, saves the silver paper in cigarette packets to decorate her room with at a sometime party or ball, while Jenny in Albee, with American practical common sense, collects coupons to save money.

1

1 The second section of the exposition concerns Jenny's meeting a procuress of a high-class brothel. In keeping with his emphasis on the psychic gravitational pull of the environment, Cooper throws into relief the easy stages through which Jenny is transformed from a respectable 1

0 E. Albee, "Preface," The American Dream, in New American Drama (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 21. 1

1 Cf. M. E. Rutenberg, Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest, p. 172. 29