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

RÉKA CRISTIAN EDWARD ALBEE'S CASTINGS A delicate balance is a shading between love and hate that exists between anybody who cares for one another. (Edward Albee) Edward Albee's plays

—together with a long list of modern American dramatists

—are indebted to the works of Eugene O'Neill. The birth of American tragedy starts with O'Neill's dramatic art, which conveys human alienation in the context of modern society, and sheds light on the tension that appears between human essence and existence in the context of modern America. The American tragedy, in Péter Egri's words was "brought about by the increased tension between the face and the reverse of the American Dream"

1. Post-war American drama depicts many facets of O'Neill's trope of alienation. Among the best to describe the consumerist American Dream within the context of American drama was Edward Albee. His plays are, according to Péter Egri "grotesquely grim and bitterly playful pieces crossbreeding Realistic relevance with Absurdist insight""Edward Albee's dramatis personae entails a construction specific to the name of the playwright. Albee's dramas have a careful composition and a special rendering of characters. Most of his characters are dual, in the sense that it is the couple, which is the basic unit in the playwright's dramatic universe. The characters seem to act in couples, which consist of individuals that supplement each other in 1 Péter Egri "Critical Approaches to the Birth of Modern American Tragedy. The Significance of Eugene O'Neill". In The Birth of American Tragedy (Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1988), 34. 2 Ibid., 34. 135