The American Dream (play)

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Data
Title: The American dream
Original title: The American Dream
Genus: comedy
Original language: English
Author: Edward Albee
Premiere: January 24, 1961
Place of premiere: New York City, York Playhouse
people
  • Mommy (Mommy)
  • Daddy (daddy)
  • Grandma (grandma)
  • Mrs. Barker (Mrs. Barker)
  • Young Man

The American Dream ( The American Dream ) is a 1959 and 1960 wrote comedy in an act of Edward Albee . The play premiered on January 24, 1961 at the York Playhouse in New York . The German-language premiere in the translation by Pinkas Braun took place on October 7, 1961 at the Schillertheater in Berlin . Martin Esslin describes it as a brilliant example of the American contribution to the theater of the absurd .

people

  • Mommy is a bossy person who condescends Grandma and infantilizes Daddy. She is also in charge of the mutilation of the adopted child.
  • Daddy is dependent and is often reprimanded by Mommy.
  • Grandma sarcastically comments on the play and at the end steps out of the plot to announce that the play should better end there. She is Mommy's antagonist .
  • Mrs. Barker is the embodiment of the American Society Lady . It is very superficial and tries to make it appear that it takes social responsibility.
  • The Young Man is symbolic of the American Dream . He has no feelings and is superficial but looks good. He is ready to do anything for money.

action

Mommy and Daddy are sitting in the living room. They talk about trivial things like buying a hat. Grandma enters the scene with her whole arm full of well-packed boxes. She complains about how old people are talked about and says that old people perished. Mommy and Grandma argue, with Daddy trying to defuse the situation.

At that moment the doorbell rings and Daddy opens the door for Mrs. Barker. It turns out that Mrs. Barker put a child up for adoption for Mommy and Daddy years ago. Since the child did not meet the expectations of the new parents, it was mutilated by Mommy, e.g. B. the eyes gouged out and the penis cut off until it finally died. Mrs. Barker shows a lot of understanding for all the trouble the two of them had over the baby.

When the Young Man finally rings the doorbell, Grandma invites him in. The play ends with the Young Man staying with Mommy and Daddy and Grandma leaving the apartment with her packages.

Interpretative approach

The American Dream has an exact dramaturgy with an exciting fable . In contrast to Beckett , who depicts the idleness of people by letting the stage characters step on the spot in both the metaphorical and the real sense, Albee tries to express the stagnation in a more complex form in the crowded scenes of this one-act play. The resulting paradox between the dynamics of the action on the one hand and the internal immobility of the characters on the other is the reason for the affinity of this play to comedy. For this very reason, Albee called his work a comedy.

In The American Dream, mommy, daddy and grandma, figuratively speaking, wash the "dirty laundry" of a decent bourgeois [American] family. The farce-like events on the stage make it clear that the marriage and family presented here only exist as a farce of an institution in which any for or togetherness has turned into an opposition.

The life of the characters, penned in a corset of norms, is so stale and powerless that in many ways the characters resemble talking dolls that almost perfectly imitate people. This applies not only to Mommy and Daddy, but also to Mrs. Barker, whose arrival was not immediately expected at the beginning, but from whom the couple obviously hopes that this will bring order to their home.

At the end of the play, Mrs Barker because even some order here, but in a increasingly to satire developing surrealist action and dialogue history by taking the in the pair illusion created that she had conveyed a new adopted son, the happiness of mommy and daddy apparently restored.

What is striking about Mrs. Barker's behavior is her frequent use of stereotypical phrases like "I am so free" to replace her own language. After just a few minutes, she takes off her dress to make herself comfortable in her petticoat. Their alleged wealth of contacts turns out to be actual lack of contacts. As the chairman of a women's club, she compensates for her lack of femininity and womanhood with her work. So she speaks of being a woman as her “profession”, if not her “calling”. For them, it is not important to have a marriage, only the status symbol of being married. In addition, for them, ambition is the highest social value and the most important or best of all individual characteristics.

The example given by her of her brother, who runs a newspaper, according to their information, but symbolizes an activity at any price, which in addition to vitality associated is, however, even in comic ad absurdum form.

This vitality, in turn, is an idol that middle-aged people in particular emulate; older people are therefore negated or pretend to be youthful. For example, Mommy explains that she is proud of her middle age, whereupon Grandma tells her that the average is no preference; Middle-aged people would think they were special because they were like everyone else. However, this only means living in an "age of confusion of terms".

Regardless of the realistic scene, the dialogue becomes more and more absurd as Grandma explains to Ms. Barker the reason why Mommy and Daddy might have asked her here. Mrs. Barker, who has been working for the adoption agency “Sunshine” for a long time, once entrusted the couple with an infant. Since this child did not look like his foster parents, however, it screamed "the heart out of the body". Since it only had eyes for Daddy, the child's eyes were scratched out; because he eventually began to take an interest in his genitals, his hands were chopped off after his penis was removed. In addition, his tongue was torn out for cursing Mommy. When the child got older, it had "no head, no marrow in the bones, no backbone" and died in order to "fill up the measure". The parents' “all the effort and money” could not change that: “all for nothing”. Grandmother therefore suspects that Mommy and Daddy would probably demand their money back from the child mediator Mrs. Barker.

This description of the “brutal dismantling of a person”, to which Brecht could have provided suggestions, represents Albee's parable or allegory of the cruel destruction of everything natural or unbound and free. The child as a symbol of innocence is destroyed because it is the couple looked strange and did not resemble its symbols. This is how the perfect was hacked and chopped up: that dream of the perfect human being, which as an essential part of the American Dream has belonged to America for centuries. Albee himself stated in a comment on the German premiere of this one-act play that the mangling of the child stands for the “self-destruction” of society.

This destruction took place before the arrival of a job seeker to whom Albee assigns the strikingly banal role title " Young Man ". The young man's very good looks and his hard muscles are the reason for Grandma to admire his advertising beauty. His handsome appearance as well as his open and clean, but at the same time infantile and backwoods demeanor motivate the grandmother to see him as the embodiment of the American Dream : “Open, clean, type of farm boy from the Midwest ... almost provocative pretty ... in a quintessentially American way. Good profile, snub nose, honest eyes, charming smile ... boy, do you know what you are? You are the American dream, that is you! "

With this remark by the grandmother, the decisive cue falls in the play, which at the same time gives Albee's play its title. The young man openly explains that he is ready to do “anything for the money”. When asked by grandmother, he explains that apart from his body and face, he has “no special gifts at all”. His mother died giving birth, and he never knew his father.

The young man's parentlessness also emphasizes his symbolic importance as an American archetype ; One of the most important characteristics of the "American Adam" ( RWB Lewis ) is that in his innocence he has to try to exist without experience - and that means without parents.

Obviously, the young man is a twin of the child that Mommy and Daddy once dismantled: "[M] an separated us when we were very young". The young man does not know what has become of his brother, only that he has “suffered losses at certain intervals” that he cannot explain. As he further confesses, he "became wicked through and through ... godless"; He has thus lost his innocence and can no longer love, but only feels "cold indifference". He is also no longer capable of “physical love”; his feelings are dead; he was "dried out, dismembered ... empty, gutted" and only had his appearance.

What happened to the young man is what happened to his twin brother about twenty years ago. The American Adam is nothing more than a "hollow larva"; the concept of the American Dream has lost its original meaning and only exists as a "meaningless idol".

The grandmother succeeds in winning both the young man and Mrs. Barker over to her plan to convince Mommy and Daddy that the young man is the longed-for second adoptive son. Mommy and Daddy are delighted, although they are a little surprised by the resemblance to the deceased child.

The play ends with the grandmother's remark that this is a comedy and that it would be better, much better, to stop here and "leave everything in its current state" "while everyone is still happy". The curtain falls on a satirical scene of domestic happiness, which for the people involved seems to be in a state of nothing.

Stage design and extra-linguistic means

The stage directions in the different editions of The American Dream show individual differences in detail (e.g. the door and archway in the different versions are on opposite sides), but are essentially the same. With two armchairs and a sofa (as well as a table in the French Edition), the stage is extremely sparsely furnished and limited to the most essential elements and suggestively creates a feeling of emptiness and isolation. The sterile atmosphere created by the stage equipment is additionally reinforced by the artificial light; According to Albee's specifications, the room only has doors, not windows. There is nothing in the room that could give the impression of comfort; Objects that would create a personal atmosphere or allow conclusions to be drawn about the residents are completely absent. The reduction in the stage design corresponds to the reduced figures of Mommy and Daddy and also emphasizes the confrontation between them: The two sit opposite each other in the two armchairs; there is a distance between them that hardly changes over the course of the piece. Significantly, they never sit together on the sofa, but persist in their confrontational stance.

The use of the other stage resources is also extremely sparse; Grandma's “neatly wrapped and tied boxes” are the only props apart from the furniture . The “box character” of the room is continued en miniature and retains its mysterious character throughout the piece. Only when she leaves does the grandmother tell the Young Man and thus the audience what the boxes contain: in addition to some old letters, the television, the Sunday teeth, sixty-eight years of age, some sounds, some pictures, the objects that you collect ( “some old letters --- the television ... my Sunday teeth ... eighty-six years of living ... some sounds ... a few images ... the things one accumulates " ). The contents of the boxes symbolically reflect the grandmother's past life, both in terms of material goods and the characteristics of her existence. At the same time, in the original, the meaning of “box” in the sense of box is associated with the idea of ​​a coffin; Grandma's departure so vividly suggests her death.

Albee only uses visual cues when her grandmother leaves: noticing her departure is accompanied by a sudden fade; it is believed that “van man” (ie death) took them; when the Young Man appears shortly afterwards, the full light suddenly comes on again. Acoustic signs are also only used in exceptional cases: In addition to silences and pauses that emphasize the emptiness and uncertainty, the doorbell only rings five times, which increases the tension as to whether the expected “they” and “van man” will finally appear. These sparse acoustic signals thus signal the impending "intrusion of the outside world into the closed space" as a referential sign.

Expression and movement of the stage characters are also only used in a limited and thus accentuated form according to Albee's stage instructions. Extra-verbal means such as smiles, tears, clearing throats or stopping contribute above all to the background of the verbal statements; Furthermore, only a few events are noticeable: The grandmother throws her boxes at Daddy's feet in contempt when her daughter asks her to put the boxes next to Daddy. At a later point, Mommy steps on many of the boxes and demonstrates her brutal behavior towards her grandmother in a graphic way. Finally, Mrs. Barker reacts in exaggerated form when, after being asked to make herself comfortable, she takes off her dress and pulls the hem of her undergarment over her knees.

In The American Dream, Albee uses extra-linguistic means very sparingly, but quite functionally. In contrast to the majority of works in modern theater, however, there is no shift in emphasis from the acoustic to the visual or from spoken theater to drama.

Family as a social microcosm

In Albee's recourse to the tradition of the family play, it is clear from the start that the author is not concerned with private problems or individual psychological analyzes, but with central problems of (American) society. With the exception of Mrs. Barker, all individual names are missing; the renouncement of developing individualized characters underlines this tendency to typify the characters of everyone who embody constants of (American) being in archetypal form. The typifying naming, however, exposes this family as an empty myth , as a form without content: Mommy and Daddy carry their names wrongly; there are no children to justify such a designation. Only through adoption can the illusion of parenthood be maintained; in fact, however, infertility and sterility determine the family. There is little hope for the future - and thus for the further development of the (American) family; In Albee's piece, the clearly contrasted constellation of figures is both the starting point and the end point. Only the departure of the grandmother, who is rooted in the old traditions, and her replacement by the young man reveal a fundamental change: The departure and apparent death of the grandmother symbolizes the extinction of the “pioneer stock” ; in their place comes the Young Man, “the surrogate of the American Dream ”. His origins as a "midwest farm boy" and his conformist attitude symbolize that he "no longer took part in the dangerous journey of the pioneers from east to west"; he only embodies the “regressus” of the American Dream , ie the retreat from the rural west, which was originally regarded as an ideal, to the big cities of the industrialized east. In Albee's play, however, hope no longer lies in the young, but in the old generation; the generally applicable norms are reversed at Albee: not the youth, but the age are presented positively.

In his hinted description of the apartment, the financial circumstances ( "We're a wealthy family" ) and the clearly echoing desire for social advancement ( "All his life, Daddy has wanted to be a United States Senator" ), Albee reflects a family of wealthy (American) "middle class" , who represent a substantial part of the whole society and have an important influence on their values ​​and morals. Mommy has "the absolute position of power". As a descendant of the "Moms" who attacked Philip Wylie in his non-fiction book A Generation of Vipers (1942) and unmasked Arthur L. Kopit in the form of a grotesque in Oh Dad, Poor Dad , ... without consideration, Mommy Daddy dominates Albee's piece entirely. She forces him to listen to her endless chatter, evidently makes all decisions alone and does not tolerate any contradiction. However, it has no opinion of its own, but conformistically adopts the views of those whom it believes have social influence or play a decisive role in society.

The relationship between Mommy and Daddy consists essentially only of the formal shell of their marriage, which was entered into for purely material reasons and is a mere institution that carries its purpose in itself as a "barter on a purely commercial basis".

Albee's assignment of roles in this family also represents a reversal of the sexes. Mommy essentially takes on masculine traits; In The American Dream, however, Daddy is only the caricature of a man who is indifferent to his environment and no longer has the willpower to assert himself. Physically he is no longer a man either; the consequences of his operation can be seen in his inner emptiness and the “substitution of his own qualities by artificial surrogates”. Mommy and Daddy try to conform to social norms by adopting a child in order to maintain the appearance of marriage and family and not to have to publicly admit their own sterility. As “parents”, however, they have no internal or emotional bond with their child, as their treatment of the first adoptive son clearly shows. The dismemberment of the child not only demonstrates the complete emptiness of their feelings and their absolute lack of relationship. The “parents” , ie the actual donors or guardians of human life, become in Albee's play the perverted counter-image of a marriage and family, in that they destroy natural life solely for reasons of conformity.

In contrast to Mommy and Daddy, the grandmother in Albee's play is the only character who is really active or "alive", although she is supposed to be deported to a nursing home by her loveless daughter due to her age and her uselessness . Both in terms of content and dramaturgy , Grandma occupies a special position: She is the one who reveals reality and exposes the "conformity, illusions and callousness" of the other characters. She is the only one who still knows the traditional values ​​of the real American Dream and is therefore able to reveal its perversion; unlike the other figures, she can still distinguish between external appearance and internal truth.

However, this is exactly what causes their isolation and exclusion from the family and social environment; She can no longer make herself heard from the people involved and therefore talks to herself. In addition, she falls out of her role as a dramatic figure by addressing the audience directly and helping them to see through the context. In the process, she becomes more and more of a dramatic audience and a director who directs the game. She breaks the plot with ironic remarks, interrupts the stage characters and finally ends the play, saying goodbye with almost the same words as the stage manager in Thornton Wilders Our Town (1938): "Good night, dears" . By destroying the illusion of the drama in this way, the viewers are encouraged to reflect critically on the scenic play; Albee makes use of this alienation effect in order to make the “play” character of his piece more conscious and thus to realize his didactic intentions.

The young man appears as a counter-image to Grandma: Similar to the "American Adam" , he is a being without history; his exact origin remains unknown, since he never met his parents. The young man's self-characterization also reflects the loss of his identity. Outwardly, with his youth, his good looks and athletic physique, he embodies the “myth of youth” as an indispensable prerequisite for popularity and success. Inwardly, however, it is completely empty, fallen out of the stage of “grace and innocence” ( “A fall from grace ... a departure from innocence” ). Its external attractiveness or beauty is only the empty shell of previously existing qualities, which, however, can no longer hide its insubstantiality or its opportunism . He without hesitation sacrifices all ethical or moral values ​​to his opportunistic, purely material objectives ( “I'll do almost anything for money” ). When his grandmother immediately identified him as an “American Dream” , he immediately confirmed this: “Well, I'm a type” .

His subsequent life report and the corresponding report by his grandmother about his twin, Mommy and Daddy's first adopted child, thus acquire an allegorical meaning that superimposes the superficial events.

The only stage character outside the family frame of reference is Mrs. Parker, who represents the outside world or the outside invading society. Albee draws her through her appearance and manner of speaking as a caricature of an externally determined person; Their way of speaking with stereotypically repeated phrases and "clichéd, meaningless comments" underlines their lack of individuality and their conformity. By constantly emphasizing her activities, she takes them to absurdity herself ; in the frame of reference of the "American Dream" it becomes the "prototype of the modern person alienated from himself and his fellow human beings by his excessive and largely senseless busyness."

Speech behavior and communication breakdown

The language used by the stage characters in The American Dream reflects in a striking way the inner emptiness, sterility and lack of relationships between the stage characters. The dialogue between mommy and daddy in particular consists mainly of linguistic “set pieces” that no longer have any actual content and can be exchanged or varied as required. The characters' conversations revolve almost exclusively around banalities; the impression arises that people automatically react to the other's phrases without even being aware of what they are trying to say. The language they use remains superficial and without expressiveness; Despite incessant talking, meaningful information can neither be conveyed nor relationships established or developed. The complete disintegration of communication is reflected in the use of language by the stage characters.

The characters' stereotypical idioms are further increased to downright "nonsense talk" in which the topics are only linked in a pseudo-logical manner and through a chain of absurd associations, for example in a passage following Mrs. Barker's report about her brother. Regardless of the context of the respective dialogue, linguistic etiquette automatically triggers certain reactions; In this way, the dialogue is completely ad absurdum due to the lack of interlinking of the speaker's statement and the listener's reaction.

The pseudo character of the conversation is also made clear by echo dialogues and forced repetitions of words. Since Daddy mostly has no interest in the respective topic of the conversation, but Mommy insists on a listener in order to preserve the character of the conversation at least in terms of form, she controls Daddy's attention first by admonishing, then by forcing parts of her speech to be repeated. Since the reciprocity of the partner relationships no longer exists, the formal dialogue turns into an actual monologue . The dominant (communication) partner takes on the role of the speaker, the suppressed one of the listener or echo. These roles can definitely change in a new social frame of reference, as the example of the dialogue at Mommys Hutkauf shows. In relation to the salespeople, Mommy, who plays the dominant role in communication with Daddy, takes on the role of mere echo. In this way, Albee shows the human being in The American Dream as a manipulated object that completely loses its individuality.

The meaninglessness of the stage language is further revealed in the use of words that were originally emotionally charged, such as "love" or "dear" , but are now only used ironically . In addition, people's language behavior is shaped by adapting to social norms. For example, after Mommy has described Mrs. Barker five times as "dreadful" , she announces that, of course, she likes Mrs. Barker very much because she is the chairman of the women 's club ( "she is the chairman of our woman's club." , so naturally I'm terribly fond of her " ).

Unpleasant topics such as the processes of procreation and birth, which are taboo in the Puritan tradition, or illness, old age and death are either avoided entirely or circumscribed by euphemisms . When Mommy at one point inadvertently referred to Mrs. Barker's husband's wheelchair as a “wheel chair” and not glossed over it as a “swing” , breaking the taboo apparently triggers complete despair, which in turn is only pretend and an expression of conventional politeness.

The use of the keyword “satisfaction” , which runs through the entire piece, is also striking . When Mommy and Daddy discover that the “bought” first adopted child does not meet their expectations, they ask for their money back in order to obtain “satisfaction” ; The choice of words thus clearly reveals the obvious equation of man and thing. After the successful integration of the “new son”, it is toasted with the words: “To satisfaction” . As Mommy means to the young man: "Maybe later tonight" (Eng. "Maybe later tonight") the term "satisfaction" in the context of the final scene also refers to sexual satisfaction. In the end, the grandmother ironically comments on people's self-deception that they have achieved real satisfaction, but in reality can no longer distinguish between existence and appearance: “[...] while everybody's got what he wants [...] or everybody's got what he thinks he wants ” (Eng.“ [...] while everyone got what they want [...] or everyone got what they think they want ”).

intention

The definite article the in the title of Albee's one-act act (in contrast to Norman Mailer's An American Dream , 1965) already indicates the author's intentions: Albee is concerned with an examination of an American collective dream , but not an individual one (Alp- )Dream. His statements in the foreword confirm that Albee is less interested in an individual psychological study than in the criticism of general social conditions:

“The play is an examimation of the American scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values ​​in our society; a condemnation of compliance, cruelty, emasculation and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen. ” (German:“ The play is a critical review of American life, an attack on the suppression of real values ​​by artificial ones in our society; a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, debilitation and emptiness; it is a protest against the lie that everything in our glorious land is just great. ")

In this replacement of real by artificial values, the conflict between illusion and reality is revealed for Albee and thus, from his point of view, a fundamental problem in American society: Like the archetypal “American Adam” ( R. W. B. Lewis ), this has a “fall from grace” according to Albee " (Eng." Fall in disgrace ") lost their original innocence and beauty ( " slipping land ... peachy-keen " ). As a playwright, Albee does not want to keep this insight to himself, but rather present it to the viewer "as a provocation and thought-provoking stimulus" in order to stimulate him to contradict and thereby force him to think. The author gives the following answer to the self-posed question “Is the play offensive?” : “I certainly hope so; it was my intention to offend - as well as amuse and entertain. ” (German:“ Is the piece offensive? I hope so; it was my intention to offend - as well as to entertain. ”). Albee's statement thus reveals a didactic intention that goes beyond the purely aesthetic intention. '

Impact history

The characters of Mommy and Daddy also appear as protagonists in the one-act play The Sandbox , which Albee wrote in 1959 as a prelude to The American Dream (English title: The Sandpit in a translation by Pinkas Braun 1962).

Several theater critics have asserted that Mommy and Daddy correspond to archetypes that Albee found in his own family. In Daddy, Albee's adoptive father Reed Albee can be recognized, while the figure of Mommy would resemble his wife Francis, who, like Mammi, was described as an authoritative and very domineering woman. In this context it was also pointed out that Albee's relationship with his adoptive parents had already been very tense during his college days and that he had severed all ties with his adoptive parents after he was of legal age. Only kept in contact with his maternal grandmother. From a literary point of view, however, it is questionable whether such autobiographical references actually provide access to an understanding of Albee's statement and dramaturgy.

In the dialogue, especially in the conversation between Mommy and Daddy, who fill the void in their daily routine with thoughtless talk, the influence of Eugène Ionesco on Albee's dramaturgy in The American Dream is particularly evident . Similarities, for example, to Ionesco's play The Bald Singer can also be seen in the grotesquely absurd pattern of the stage action in Albee's version of an American family farce . In The American Dream, for example, the couple's superficial palaver culminates in an actually meaningless dispute about the color of a hat that Mommy bought - a gibberish that is all about standardized ideas.

Albee himself expressed himself in an explanation translated into German by Pinkas Braun on the question of whether his play could also be understood outside the United States. In the form of a chain of rhetorical counter-questions , he emphasizes the general intention and statement of his work that goes beyond purely American standards as follows:

“Is it possible that the sociological - psychological situation that I have traced in this piece is only characteristic of my country? If this were true, I would feel some comforting relief - but I cannot persuade myself to believe it. Isn't there also in West Germany - just as in England, France, etc. - that large, anonymous social class, called the middle class , whose complacency has developed a pernicious belief in false values, whose social behavior is determined by the path of least resistance ? Does n't Western European bourgeois society also have a tendency towards indolence, myopia and - in the long term - self-destruction? ... Aren't there just too many people in Western Europe, too, whose inner life is deeply spiritual and moral ? ... Does the fact that <The American Dream>, on the surface, is funny and American in its coloring , speaks against the terrible seriousness behind it, or against the supranational general validity? "

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, pp. 63–71.
  • Nicholas Anaday, Jr .: Albee's The American Dream and the Existential Vacuum . In: Blake Hobby and Harold Bloom (Eds.): Blooms Literary Themes: The American Dream . New York 2009. (see web link below)
  • Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , pp. 20-29.
  • Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. In: Horst Groene / Berthold Schik (Hrsg.): The modern drama in English lessons at secondary level II, fundamentals, interpretations, course projects . Scriptor Verlag, Königstein / Ts. 1980, ISBN 3-589-20743-4 , pp. 33-54.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Martin Esslin: The Theater of the Absurd . New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Esslin's attribution of the play to the theater of the absurd has been put into perspective in the literary discussion, however, since such an attribution, despite the existing points of contact, misunderstands the fundamental differences between Albee's work and the European conception of absurdity. See CWE Bigsby: Edward Albee's Dramas . In: Gerhard Hoffmann (ed.): American literature of the 20th century - poetry and drama . Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01471-0 , pp. 288-308, here p. 296 f.
  2. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 64.
  3. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 66 f. See also Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , p. 25 ff.
  4. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 66 f. See also Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , p. 23 ff.
  5. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 66 f. See also Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , p. 25 f.
  6. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 67 f.
  7. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 68. The quotation in the German translation is taken from this source.
  8. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 68 f. The text quotations in the German translation are taken from this source.
  9. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 69. The quotation in the German translation is taken from this source. See also Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , p. 28 f.
  10. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 38 f.
  11. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 39. Schik also refers here to Regina Brede's dissertation: The presentation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 89 f.
  12. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 39.
  13. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 39 f.
  14. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 40 f.
  15. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 41.
  16. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 41 f. Schik cites Regina Brede's dissertation here: The representation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 93.
  17. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 42.
  18. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 42 f.
  19. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 42 f.
  20. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 43 f.
  21. ↑ See Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 43 f. In his analysis, Schik also refers at this point to Regina Brede's dissertation: The representation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 95.
  22. ↑ Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 44.
  23. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 44 f., And Regina Brede: The representation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 97.
  24. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 45. Schik refers here to Regina Brede: The representation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 102.
  25. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 45.
  26. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 46. Schik refers here to Regina Brede: The representation of the communication problem in the drama of Edward Albee - A literary investigation , Kiel 1974, p. 100.
  27. ↑ See Berthold Schik. The American Dream: dream and nightmare in modern American drama. , P. 46 f.
  28. ↑ a b Cf. Berthold Schik: The American Dream: Dream and Nightmare in Modern American Drama. , P. 37. See also CWE Bigsby: Edward Albee's Dramas . In: Gerhard Hoffmann (ed.): American literature of the 20th century - poetry and drama . Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01471-0 , pp. 288–308, here p. 294. Bigsby also emphasizes Albee's intention here to reveal the inadequacy of the American dream. Albee's statement about the play is quoted at this point in the German translation.
  29. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 63 f.
  30. ↑ See Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 65. On Ionesco's influence on Albee's play, see also Ronald Hayman: The Sandbox and the American Dream . In: Ronald Hayman: Contemporary Playwrights - Edward Albee . Heinemann Verlag, London 1971, ISBN 0-435-18409-1 , p. 20.
  31. ↑ Quoted from Helmut M. Braem: The American Dream . In: Helmut M. Braem: Edward Albee , Friedrichs Dramatiker des Welttheater, Volume 63, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968, without ISBN, p. 70. The entire Albee declaration is printed in italics in this template.