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

9 c own expense""'

. Decoding AI beefs characters) is more than a process of a simple recognition

—as the comic laughter

—, it also brings forth all that recognition entails. This also includes the fact that Edward Albee does not write about what things are, he rather points at what they are not (let to be), especially in traditional social contexts and well bound human attachments (such as the institution of marriage). Anne Paolucci compared Albee with Bernard Shaw, who shocked his readers by "insisting that love and marriage do not mix easily in marriage". Albee in his turn, as Paolucci writes, insisted "on what sex in marriage is not

" . By writing about things, which "are not" or 'do not speak their name', the characters and the plot of Albee's dramas bear the mark of the unsaid, of the blindspot, of the enigma that direct the reader towards the name of the playwright. In the following we will follow the characters and the quest for the enigmatic figure of the child in some of Albee's dramas. 97 The Zoo Story is a masterly play" that emerges from a casual encounter between two men, Jerry and Peter, into an explosive confrontation that ends in a ritualistic act of sacrifice and violence. By dying, Jerry offers Peter a special awareness of life, which suddenly wakes Peter up in a final recognition. The anguish and loneliness of the two different men are common denominators and concern, as Anita Maria Stenz writes in her book about Albee, "the inadequacy of To the human heart"- . Peter and Jerry are neither winners nor losers, 2

5 Ibid., 35. "

6 Anne Paolucci "Exorcisms. Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool/?". In From Tension to Tonic. The Plays of Edward Albee (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 47. 2

7 The Zoo Stoiy is Albee's first play and came out of Albee's experiences in New York in the 1950s as a Western Union messenger. The play was influenced by the figures of Jean Genet and Tennesee Williams. Cf. "Die Zoo-Geschichte". In Mel Gussow Edward Albee. A Singular Journey. A Biography (London: Oberon, 1999), 93-1 18. "Albee himself has pointed out the influence upon The Zoo Story of Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams. Albee's play, like that of Williams, contains a search for God climaxed by violence. Like the Old Testament Jeremiah, whose cruel prophecies were a warning kindness to his people, Jerry may have educated Peter in his relation to God". In Ruby Cohn Edward Albee (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1969), 9. 2

X Anita Maria Stenz Edward Albee: The Poet of Loss (New York: Mouton Publishers, 1978), 12. 145