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
a voyage from which there would have been no return'" 3 (emphasis mine) if he found what he was searching for. The rear position of the apartment emphasizes the repressed nature of his place —as the place of the unconscious —, something that is in the rear is hidden as the past events and traumas from Jerry's life. The twin room of his room (the two smaller rooms were originally one room) is occupied by a "coloured queen who always keeps his door open". The similarity of the rooms connote a narcissistic, dual image, which implies (not only by the nature of the transvestite) Jerry's nature. His possessions are two picture empty frames, "eight or nine books", a pack of pornographic playing cards, an old Western Union typewriter 3" "that prints nothing but capital letters", and a box with some "please letters" and sea-rocks he "picked on the beach" when he was a child. The empty frames depict the lack of parents (two picture frames, one for each dead parent). The "please letters" are only substitutions for possible objects of love and are detours on Jerry's route of desire. The sea-rocks, however foretell the person with whom he will finally achieve communion and communication, Peter ('Peter' means 'rock') 3 5. The blindspot of the drama is an absent character, the unborn child that Peter longs for. Since he is a conformist, Peter wants to have a son in order to obey the laws of patriarchal culture, where the male child means the continuation of the family, of the name and its traditions. This unborn "male child" —that Peter's wife could not Ronald Hayman "The Zoo Story". In Edward Albee (London: Heineman, 1971), 11. 3 4 The Western Union typewriter is both a personal involvement and a device with which he actually wrote his first drama. "In February, one month before his birthday, he sat down in a folding chair at a rickety table in his kitchen in his apartment at 238 West 4 t h Street. Using a standard typewriter he had stolen (or 'liberated') from Western Union and yellow copy paper from the same source, he began to write a play, single space, filling the margins. Everything had led him to this moment. For the first lime in his life, the writing seemed to How from some inner need and conviction." It took two and a half weeks to write the drama. "From first line to last, it flowed. As he said, 'There was a click'." In Mel Gussow Edward Albee. A Singular Journey. A Biography (London: Oberon, 1999), 91. The drama can also be interpreted in Biblical terms, with the cast of 'Jerry', who would stand for Jesus and 'Peter', who would be Peter, the apostle. 148
