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
colony,;.."); 3 5 and on occasion it could be a spoken line removing completely the difference between description and dialogue ("What else?'). 3 6 Quite often Albee even provides experimentally optional stage directions leaving it to the actor or director which alternative to take. 3 7 In a consistently composed play each constituent part or particle is an Archimedian point. In Albee's drama even an "aside" is and at the same time is not an "aside": Roger's is heard by Richard from whom it is supposed to be concealed. 3 8 Is it not natural then in this play that Jack, who in a sense is a continuous "aside" and a running commentary, could be raised from the dead to return for a final comment? Throughout Albee's drama he steps into and out of the action, his remarks are sometimes heard by the other characters in the play, and sometimes only by the audience. In Cooper's drama his resurrection would be unimaginable and unacceptable. The fact that his return is imaginable, imaginative and acceptable in Albee's play is indicative of the fact that the Americanization of a British drama in this case is a special and complex phenomenon. It certainly includes a change of locale from British to American (as it does in the American play and film version of Brian Clark's Whose Life is it Anyway ?) 3 9 It also involves an expansion of dimensions (as it does in the Hollywood film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus) At the same time, however, it also implies a 3 5 Ibid., p. 160. 3 6 Ibid., p. 195. 3 7 Ibid., pp. 66—7, 90, 101, 103, 117, 145, 155, 160. G. Cooper's instructions offer a choice only once: Everything in the Garden, p. 212. 3 8 E. Albee, Everything in the Garden, p. 128. Cf. p. 20, where Jenny speaks "Sniffling; the whole act which is not an act". 3 9 For the Americanization of locale, cultural context and language in the Broadway version of Brian Clark's Whose Life is it Anyway? compare: A. R. Glaap, " Whose Life is it Anyway? in London and on Broadway: a contrastive analysis of the British and American versions of Brian Clark's play", in The Play Out of Context: Transferring from Culture to Culture, eds. H. Scolnicov and P. Holland (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 214—23. The filming of a play has the potential of increasing visual dimensions, replacing accents and focuses anyway. The American movie used this potential to a very great extent. Yet, as Milos Forman, the director of the film version of Amadeus has pointed out to Peter Shaffer, the novelty which the translation of play into film achieves is, in fact, "another 38
