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

with the same woman" (Claire) but also in Agnes' recognition of the semblance when she asks for a drink from Harry: "Will you make me a drink, Harry, since you are being Tobias?". Tobias is a complex character. He is later (and finally) called by his daughter a "saint, sage, daddy

, everything... sea monster, ram... absolutely human man"

4

2. Tobias is already "stranger" to Agnes, a stranger that happened to enter her room during the night of the plot time. By the end of the play Tobias answers to the question concerning his relation to Harry put by Claire at the beginning ("Would you give friend Harry the shirt off your back, as they say?"). He says that "friendship grows to love" but since Harry does not respond Tobias has his replicas to the silence: "I like you, Harry, yes, I really do, but I don't like Edna... I find my liking you has limits... BUT THOSE ARE MY LIMITS!" The attraction of the two men Tobias and Harry to each other echoes the image of what Teddy might have become if he was alive (like Charlie, who liked men) and identified with his father. Harry's fright, in turn, might have been the recognition of his otherness and attraction towards Tobias, which he, as his wife 'dare not name' but are afraid of as the couple of Virginia Woo If is "afraid" on the account of their non-existent son. Claire is the symbol of the pre-Oedipal stage of the semiotic since she is, according to Agnes, "nothing but vowels". She is an alcoholic that escaped the organized group therapy and makes fun of the experience in the home of her sister. Claire bears the connotation of her name since she was "not named for nothing". She is the female Tiresias floating in alcohol. She "watches from the sidelines" and has seen "so very much, has seen all so clearly" from the life of the family. Her scopic drive is emphasized by the fact that she has never "missed a chance to participate in watching". Edna and Harry

4" suddenly enter the house of Agnes-Tobias with the explanation similar in function with the nursery rhyme from Who's Afraid ofVirgnia Woolf? (which in Thornton Wilder's words could be 4

2 Ibid., 48. 4

3 "Edward says that the reason he borrowed the Winston's names [Albee's Jewish neighbors] for the characters is that they would have been the last people that his parents would have taken in". Mel Gussow Edward Albee: A Singular Journey. A Biography (London: Oberon, 1999), 40. 153