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

thorough-going reinterpretation of the original work both in matter and manner. If Jack's reappearance after his death relativizes, though does not annihilate, the validity of the dramatic climax in Albee's version of Cooper's play, then it is only the last link in a well-forged dramatic chain where each element performs the theatrical miracle of simultaneously upholding and undermining its own sense and significance. Yet even if Jack's resurrection in Albee's play is dramatically organic and defendable, his drawing a conclusion, teaching a lesson and preaching a sermon are disturbing. On the other hand, to embarrass his audience, to make it feel uneasy, to tip it out of its habitual expectations, to jolt and shock it out of its traditional complacency have invariably been Albee's characteristic dramatic gestures. In his wittily worded paper "Which Theater Is the Absurd One?" Albee claims in no uncertain terms that The Theater of the Absurd, in the sense that it is truly the contemporary theater, facing as it does man's condition as it is, is the Realistic theater of our time; and ... the supposed Realistic theater

—the term used here to mean most of what is done on Broadway

—in the sense that it panders to the public need for self-congratulation and reassurance and presents a false picture of ourselves to ourselves, is, with an occasional very lovely exception, really and truly The Theater of the Absurd.

4

1 fulfilment of the same impulse which has crated the original". P. Shaffer, "Postscript: The Play and the Film," in Amadeus (Harmondworth, 1985), p. 109. 4

1 E. Albee, "Which Theater Is the Absurd One?," in The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. A. B. Kernan (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967), p. 173. Albee's interest in an updated version of realistic drama is also revealed in his appreciation of Chekhov. Cf. Ch. S. Krohn and J. N. Wasserman, "An Interview with Edward Albee, March 18, 1981," in Edward Albee: An Interview and Essays, ed. J. Wasserman (Houston, Texas, 1983), pp. 1, 4, 18, 22. For Albee's description of himself as an American dramatist compare: ibid., pp. 12—3. 39