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
The dénouement or solution section of.the plot shows the way in which the members of good society, after the shock of the murder, are reconciled —albeit sulkily —to the state of affairs (the rest of Act Three in Cooper and of Act Two in Albee) . It is remarkable that before finally resigning to having participated in an act of murder, both Bernard and Richard suggest that the police ought to be informed. In Cooper's play Jenny rejects her husband's idea with her "Don't be absurd". 2 4 It is at this point that Cooper's sense of incongruity comes closest to Albee's view. Cooper's casual insight is, in fact, the American dramatist's starting point and vantage point. It is the recognition of the fact that in a world where artificial values are substituted for real ones, absurdity prevails 2 5 But exactly because Albee takes this reverse situation for granted, if unacceptable, he does not need to formulate its absurdity in a single admonishing sentence (which, absurdly enough, makes the right appear absurdly wrong) . It is the entire form of his whole play which conveys the sense of absurdity. So in the course of rewriting Cooper's drama, Albee cut out Jenny's absurd reference to an alleged absurdity and made Mrs Toothe prove to everybody present how dangerously unfeasible Richard's idea to call the police was. A play of this kind is very difficult to finish. Cooper, in fact, experimented with two endings. His first idea was to make the actor playing the part of Bernard revolt against his role. This "Pirandellian dodge" 26 openly confronted ideal with reality, but later Cooper found this solution was disturbing and discarded the idea. In Cooper's second (and final) ending Bernard and Jenny sink back to their ordinary life and bury their remorse in a routine conversation about pipe-cleaners and keeping up the garden of the new brothel. "Ours must look like all the others" 2 7 Jenny concludes. This is a fine and convincing ending which corresponds to Cooper's general concept about the deterministic power of external circumstances. It makes the author's indictment indirect. 2 4 G. Cooper, Everything in the Garden, p. 214. E. Albee, Everything in the Garden, pp. 123—5. 2 6 Cf. J. W. Lambert, "Introduction," New English Dramatists 7, p. 12. G. Cooper, Everything in the Garden, p. 221. 34
