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
runs the business of the Bye-Bye adoption agency and sells 'adoptions' like normal products. The Young Man of the play is the muscular movie-like faced man that Grandma invests with the role of the "van man". He looks "familiar" to Grandma and then to Mommy, too. He is the visible site for the blindspot of the play, who is the baby that had been once brought/adopted and then dismembered and killed by its foster parents. The Young Man's familiar looks are emphasized three times during the play (which means he is part of the enigma of the plot), since he is the twin brother of a child Mommy and Daddy once bought. The foster parents dismembered and finally killed this brother because they were not satisfied with him. The plot of the drama brings the dead child's substitution in the person of the Young Man, whom Grandma calls the "van man" and whom Mrs. Barker, as a good merchant, substitutes for the previously 'sold' child. The van man is, thus a fictional construct of Mommy and Daddy, which is made flesh by Grandma's witty substitution. The Young Man confesses that he lost his mother, never knew his father and had an "identical" twin brother who was separated and taken away from him. "We were torn apart", The Yong Man says. His brother was at his turn, torn apart by his new parents. At that time The Young Man felt that his twin brother's life was over because once his heart "became numb" as if the mutilation was taking place in his own body. From that moment on he was never able to love. This might have been the moment when Mommy and Daddy actually dismembered his twin brother 5 5. The "van man" is the product of Mommy's and Daddy's imagination similar to the son of Martha and George from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He is the "clean-cut, midwest farm boy type, almost insultingly good-looking in a typically American way" with a "good profile, straight noses, honest eyes, wonderful smile", in other words "the American Dream". 'He', as the van boy, was created x "In all his work there are recurrent themes (and even character names, like Agnes, Amy, Ann, Toby, Fred): twins (male and female), sometimes separated at birth; children who died or were lost; strong mothers and weak fathers; dreamers and questers who are misunderstood and confused about their identity, sexual or otherwise." Mel Gussow "Albee's Village Decade". In Edward Albee. A Singular Journey. A Biography (London: Oberon, 1999), 85. 157
