Allegory in Edward Albee's The American Dream

Allegory in Edward Albee's The American Dream

Our understanding of Edward Albee's achievement in The American Dream (1960) has come a long way since 1961 when Martin Esslin hailed it as a "brilliant first example of an American contribution to the Theatre of the Absurd"1 and 1966 when Nicholas Canaday, Jr. labeled it America's "best example of what has come to be known as 'the theatre of the absurd.'"2

The shrewdest assessment of absurdism in Albee is by Brian Way, who shows convincingly that, although Albee has successfully mastered the techniques of theatrical absurdism, he has nevertheless shied away from embracing the metaphysics that the style implies.3 That is, Albee knows that Theatre of the Absurd is "an absorption-in-art of certain existentialist and post-existentialist philosophical concepts having to do, in the main, with man's attempts to make sense for himself out of his senseless position in a world which makes no sense."4 But Albee nevertheless "believes in the validity of reason--that things can be proved, or that events can be shown to have definite meanings."5 Structurally, the chief evidence for this claim is that Albee's plays, including The American Dream, move toward resolution, denouement and completion rather than the circularity or open-endedness typical of Theatre of the Absurd.6

In regard to content, Way's point may be extended by contrasting the implications of the titles of The American Dream and Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, an absurdist drawing room comedy to which Albee's play seems indebted in many ways. Ionesco's title derives from the Fireman's passing reference to the woman who "always wears her hair in the same style."7 She is not a character in the play, nor is she ever referre...

... middle of paper ...

...ampshire, where Wilder was a mentor and Albee was an aspiring poet. Richard E. Amacher implies that this comment was important in Albee's turning to playwriting. (Edward Albee (New York: Twayne, 1969), p. 19) Although Wilder is referred to negatively in Albee's Fam and Yam (along with Miller, Williams and Inge), that may be because he represents the dramatic establishment that a new playwright like Albee must challenge, rather than because Albee dislikes him or his drama. The intellectual and dramaturgical relationships between Albee and Wilder would make an interesting study.

24. Michael E. Rutenberg, Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest (New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1969), pp. 230, 232. Albee adds, "There might be an allegory to be drawn, and have the fantasy child the revolutionary principles of this country that we haven't lived up to yet." Ibid., p. 230.