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Literatur
Eugene O'Neill,Days Without End, inThe Plays of Eugene O'Neill (New York: Random House, 1954), III, p. 553.
Ibid., p. 567. Cf. Eugene O'Neill,Lazarus Laughed, inThe Plays of Eugene O'Neill, I, pp. 280, 366–371.
Cf. Travis Bogard,Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 326–327; Virginia Floyd,Eugene O'Neill at Work: Newly Released Ideas for Plays (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 92–113.
Eugene O'Neill,Long Day's Journey Into Night (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1969), p. 176.
Tennessee Williams,The Glass Menagerie, inSweet Bird of Youth, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1948), p. 313.
Arthur Miller,Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism ed. Gerald Weales (New York: The Viking Press, 1967), pp. 138–139.
Ibid., p. 138.
Ibid..
Ibid., 139.
At this juncture it is worth quoting Miller himself: “I am sorry the self-realization of the older son, Biff, is not a weightier counterbalance to Willy's disaster in the audience mind. ... to me the tragedy of Willy Loman is that he gave his life, or sold it, in order to justify the waste of it.” Artur Miller, “Tragedy and the Common Man”,ibid. Artur Miller, pp. 149, 150.
Cf. J. W. Lambert, “Introduction” toNew English Dramatists 7 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Plays, 1963), p. 12.
Giles Cooper,Everything in the Garden, inNew English Dramatists 7, p. 221.
Edward Albee,Everything in the Garden, inThe Plays IV (New York: Atheneum, 1982), p. 197.
When in his interview with Edward Albee (on 7 August, 1968) M. E. Rutenberg asked the playwright why he had cut the original ending ofEverything in the Garden for the Broadway presentation, Albee replied: “It was a last desperate moment because the way the play had been directed up to that particular point, the end wasn't working. I think that with a different directorial concept, the ending would have worked. Youwill notice that the published version of the play has the original ending, and the productions being done in stock and amateur and in Europe have my original ending.” Michael E. Rutenberg,Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest (New York: Avon Books, 1970), p. 229. Apparently, the conclusion did present a problem to both author, director and critic.
Edward Albee,Everything in the Garden, inThe Plays IV, p. 197.
Ibid. Edward Albee,Everything in the Garden, inThe Plays IV, p. 198.
Cf. Ronald Hayman,Edward Albee (London: Heinemann, 1971), p. 84.
Edward Albee,Everything in the Garden, inThe Plays IV, p. 201.
Edward Albee, “Which Theater Is the Absurd One?”, in Alvin B. Kernan (ed.),The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), p. 173. Albee's dramatic practice often cuts across and goes beyond the scope of this witty paradox. Unlike Beckett, who inWaiting for Godot has created an openly absurd universe, in which the dramatic principle is ingeniously saved by referring the plight of inaction to the need for action; and unlike Pinter, who inThe Birthday Party and in a number of similar plays has brought about a pseudo-naturalistic world, where behind the seemingly solid crust of external reality absurdly irrational violence proves human action senseless and futile; in several of his plays includingWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? andEverything in the Garden Albee crossbreeds realistic and absurd drama in a characteristically American fusion. In these cases, however, realistic drama is not a well-made Broadway farce, melodrama or musical, but serious drama with a critical intent and a cathartic action.
Cf. Charles S. Krohn and Julian N. Wasserman, “An Interview with Edward Albee, March 18, 1981”, in Julian N. Wasserman (ed.),Edward Albee: An Interview and Essays (Houston, Texas: The University of St. Thomas, 1983), p. 17.
Cf. Michael E. Rutenberg,Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest, p. 171.
Or, as Albee himself names the process, writing “the American version of that particular English play”,Ibid. Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest, p. 229.
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Egri, P. Dramatic exposition and resolution in O'Neill, Williams, Miller, and Albee. Neohelicon 19, 175–184 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02028617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02028617