Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Réka Cristian: Edward Albee's Castings

play entitled Farn and Yam explicitly presents the not-yet named (name of the) author in the young character of YAM (the acronym for The Young American Playwright), which renders a filial relationship with the character of FAM (Famous American Playwright) 6. The motif of the child (who is mostly gendered male) is recurring in different versions throughout the dramaturgy of Albee. The child constitutes the blindspot of the plays and it is hidden and revealed in the world of Albee's verbal mastery. While the dual relationships in the dramas of Williams require a strong sense of the character's gendered nature, the characters from Seascape and Sandbox , the family of The American Dream , or Fam and Yam , and Fragments. A Sit Around —to name a few of Edward Albee's dramatis personae —seem to distance their corporeality from their gendered bodies. In the context of Albee's dramaturgy, sexuality seems of no greater importance than a simple dramatic device. Förster Hirsch remarks that Albee's characters are "often removed from sex" and that "bodies in Albee are never, as they are in the work of Tennessee Williams, instruments not only of lust but of salvation and spiritual transcendence as well". 7 Since the couple is the basic unit of Albee's dramaturgy, it is the trope of the couples that will be in the focus of further investigations. The scope of this investigation is to visualize, through the couples in the dramas, the issue of the present or absent child as Albee's plot of desire. The aim is also to present a patterning of events and characters by deriving the invisible into the visible. The invisible blindspot of the child in one play may as well be a trope of representation in another play or, in other words, one play may actually be the other discourse of the other play. An example of this kind is the (mis)communication of George and Nick on behalf of the child Nick mentions and George hides (or Tobias and Harry in A story is directly from Albee's life" and the theme of the baby and self­determination of what reality is has been of primary concern to Albee. Cf. Mel Gussow Edward Albee : A Singular Journey. A Biography (London: Oberon, 1999), 396-399. ( 1 FAM and YAM. An Imaginary Interview. In Edward Albee The Sandbox. The Death of Bessie Smith (with FAM and YAM), (New York: New American Library, 1960). Foster Hirsch "Delicate Balances". In Who's Afraid of Edward Albee? (Berkeley: Creative Arts Books, 1978), 15. 138

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