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

attain again the primary, lost object of love in an abyss that appears between (and among) them and which, as Gerald Weales had remarked, has been carefully induced by the laws of society similarly perceived by Albee and Williams (and Ionesco). The chasm that confronts the Albee characters may, then, be existential chaos or a materialistic society corrupt enough to make a culture hero out of... (whom? to each critic his own horrible example, and there are those who would pick Albee himself), or a combination in which the second of these is an image of the first. There is nothing unusual about this slightly unstable mixture of philosophic assumption and social criticism; it can be found in the work of Tennessee Williams and, from quite a different perspective, that of Eugéne Ionesco

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9. The similitude of Albee's and Williams's plays is pointed out by Harold Bloom, who emphasized the role of love in both playwrights' dramaturgy. The shift of the two basic human attitudes for both playwrights is made evident: their characters love and hate at the same time; they envy and gratify instantly. Williams has some metaphysical input in the quest for the object of love while Albee, in Harold Bloom's view, evades this transcendental component by making it ironic: ...we have a drama of impaling, of love gone rancid because of a metaphysical lack. That is Albee's characteristic and obsessive concern, marked always by its heritage, which is a similar sense of the irteconciliability of love and the means of love that dominates the plays of Tennessee Williams.

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0 Albee's female characters bear, in most cases, masculine features and appear to be with phallic attributes. Mothering, as the relational human process in Albee's plays, does not necessarily imply the presence of the explicit female body, therefore Albee's women characters are detached from the stereotypical feature of the woman and embody irony and satire in their dramatic emasculation. However, as Foster Hirsch observed, they are rather maternal figures with occasional emasculating or phallic attributes. l

u Gerald Weales "Edward Albee; Don't Make Waves". In Harold Bloom Edward Albee (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 35. 2

0 Harold Bloom Edward Albee (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987 ), 6. 143