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

in the plot. When in the course of recomposing his British predecessor's drama Albee realized that the adaptation had given way to a real collaboration, the enhancement of the grotesque aspect in the original reached the point of absurdity. By using and relativizing the dramatic means, the structure, indeed the entire form of Cooper's play, Albee has generalized and intensified the aura of incongruity, already inherent in Cooper's theme, into a sense of absurdity. In the context of the Cooper

—Albee relationship it is in this sense that Albee's Americanization

43 has achieved its internal stage and ultimate degree of modernization and revaluation. This was the way in which Albee has composed his absurd American variations on a grotesque British theme. Cooper and Albee: a contrastive summary A conclusion hardly needs an exposition either in a drama or in a dramatic analysis. COOPER 1. Stage directions tend to be long. 2. The dramatic action is embedded in an epic milieu. ALBEE They are much shorter: the field of play for individual initiative is broad er. Descriptive detail is dramatically functional: the gravitational pull of circumstances is challenged. 3. The viewers of the play are also considered to be potential readers of the text: a Shavian inheritance (cf. Pygmalion). The spectators have only been as signed the role of an audience: the dramatic edge is sharper. 4

3 Albee himself named the process as writing "the American version of that particular English play", Cf. M. E. Rutenberg, Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest, p. 229. 41