The absurdity of life
Albee has been linked with the traditions of the Theater of the Absurd. His plays seem to have dwelled on one problem only, i.e., the absurdity of human life built very much on a frail illusion and spiritual emptiness. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George and Martha, a son, 21th birthday, Nick and Honey
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Elmer Rice (1892-1967)
The Adding Machine (1923) Off-stage devices: sound and light
Susan Glaspell (1882-1948)
Mother of American Drama Founded the Provincetown Players One-act play: Trifles《鸡毛蒜皮》
Desire Under the Elms (1924)
Ephraim Cabot, tall, gaunt, 75 Eben Cabot, a son from Ephraim’s second marriage, tall, good-looking, sinewy, and 25 years old Abbie Putnam, Ephraims’s new wife, buxom, full of vitality, and 35 years old
ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
1940s: Tennessee William dominated the theater. The Glass Menagerie The early fifties: Arthur Miller, William Inge, Death of a Salesman The late fifties: a temporary decline 1960s: American drama picked up fresh energy. The Theater of the Absurd. Heavily political. A tendency to “decentralize” from Broadway. Edward Albee, David Mamet
Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)
Born in a goddam hotel room and dying in a hotel room! Nobel Prize in 1936, Beyond the Horizon Father, James O’Neill a famous actor Voyage to South America and South Africa Tuberculosis, sanitarium Greenwich Village, New York
The Glass Menagerie
The Wingfields: Mother Amanda,Tom, Laura Jim O’Connor Escape, prison
A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche Dubois New Orleans Stella and Stanley Kowalski Mitch
Major Plays
Bound East for Cardiff (1916) Beyond the Horizon (1920) first Pulitzer Anna Christie (1921) second Pulitzer The Hairy Ape (1922) Strange Interlude (1928) third Pulitzer Marco Million (1928) Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956) fourth Pulitzer
William Inge (1913-1973)
Bus Stop: Cherie
Edward Albee (1928-)
The Zoo Story (1958)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62,
Tony Award)
A Delicate Balance (1966, Pulitzer Prize)
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
All My Sons (1947) Death of A Salesman (1947) the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize The Crucible (1953) After the Fall (1964) The Price (1968) A typical theme: the dilemma of modern man in relation to his family and work
Characteristics of the play
Stage setting: the Elizabethan kind of stage, the artful manipulation of light, shift of time House frame – transparent of the setting – the psychological drama of Willy in a stream-of-consciousness technique Flashbacks: Ben and the Boston woman
Clifford Odets (1906-1963)
Waiting for Lefty (1935)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
The Glass Menagerie (1945) A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) Pulitzer Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) Pulitzer Night of the Iguana (1961) The Milk Train Does Not Stop Here Anymore (1963)
Why “Virginia Woolf”?
Martha is well read and has a kind of respect for language. She would have identified herself Virginia Woolf who had an incredible amount of verbal wit and could have committed suicide all the same. “Virginia Woolf” is used as a homophone for “wolf,” repeating a line from a ballad, “who is afraid of the big, bad wolf?” The wolf is a metaphor for the hopelessness that stretches before them.
American Drama
1916: Bound East for Cardiff. Modern American dramatists began to attract attention. 1920s: a renaissance of drama ,Eugene O’Neill, Elmer Rice, Maxwell Anderson 1930s: the drama was preoccupied with social concerns. Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets
Seascape (1975, Pulitzer Prize)
Three Tall Women (1994, Pulitzer Prize)
The Theater of the Absurd
The Theater of the Absurd came into vogue in the 1950s and 1960s and ceased to be dominant in the 1970s. It refers to some play the theme of which centers on the meaninglessness of life with its pain and suffering that seems funny, even ridiculous. In these works the playwrights try to force the audience to face up to the human condition as it is, instead of presenting a false picture of it and pandering to the public need for reassurance.
Characterization of Willy
Willy’s personality is projected through other characters in the play. Ben – Willy’s love of nature and the pioneering spirit; Willy’s role model, his alter ego and conscience. Linda – Willy’s love of the city and its settled spirit Biff – Willy’s love for nature Happy-- Willy’s desire to succeed in the city