After reading Detroit
and hearing everybody talk about the Americna Dream, I figured no play would
serve better as Show and Tell Post #2 than Edward Albee’s The American Dream. This play, in almost every embodiment I’ve seen
it performed…was terrible. I designed for it...and it was terrible. I think,
just maybe, that I’ve figured out why they were all terrible. The answer may be
for once that the play is not terrible, but we just actually aren’t deep enough
to understand it. Ready for this plot?
In The American Dream, Daddy and Mommy live in a house with Grandma. No, I’m not joking...thats the names. They are visited by Mrs. Barker, who after almost immediately stripping down to sexy lingerie, begins to talk to them about a problem they’ve been having, but nobody can remember it. Grandma begins to pile up boxes all around her chair, and she gets yelled at for taking up space. The family bickers about for a little longer before spilling the beans. They want a child, and Mrs. Barker is supposed to get one for them. She got one for them before (they all just forgot it until the end of the play), but it got mutilated and then died because it was a bad kid. So Mrs. Barker gives them the American Dream, Grandma moves out with all her stuff in boxes (even her room is packed into a box, somehow), and the play ends on a happy bump.
Whut? I’m still confused too, don’t worry. I think the big thing here is to try and make sense of this play, because every time I read it I FEEL like it is awesome. But every time I see it, I feel disappointed. I really can feel the potential when I read The American Dream. Please forgive that slightly ironically funny representation of the plot, because while it is a zany show, it definitely tackles some big things about how American is becoming a giant façade, and how the modern family dynamic isn’t really a family anymore. This show has some big issues, and really can show them off beautifully. This is due to a few key choices by Albee.
The first, obviously, is the use of expressionism. Characters in this play are named by what they are or what they do. Realism is so far from the goal here that it becomes kind of comical to try and imagine this as a straight play. In fact, using the lack of realism gives the play room to talk about serious issues like America essentially ruining itself behind this fake screen of corporations, material goods, and popular garbage. It could not make the bold nation-wide statements it pushes forward if it had been a realistic play. Either people would grow angry at the play, and turn off the idea of being affected, or they would push away the ideas as “more boring political dribble,” and file it away to never be used again. By keeping the audience on their toes, little bitty nuggets of delicious information sneak on in there, like how the American Dream, as a character, is a hollowed shell. There is not real wall separating that message. The American Dream is a hollow shell of its former self. I don’t think we could’ve said it that plainly if we hadn’t just spent half an hour or more readjusting our audiences perceptions of this reality.
In The American Dream, Daddy and Mommy live in a house with Grandma. No, I’m not joking...thats the names. They are visited by Mrs. Barker, who after almost immediately stripping down to sexy lingerie, begins to talk to them about a problem they’ve been having, but nobody can remember it. Grandma begins to pile up boxes all around her chair, and she gets yelled at for taking up space. The family bickers about for a little longer before spilling the beans. They want a child, and Mrs. Barker is supposed to get one for them. She got one for them before (they all just forgot it until the end of the play), but it got mutilated and then died because it was a bad kid. So Mrs. Barker gives them the American Dream, Grandma moves out with all her stuff in boxes (even her room is packed into a box, somehow), and the play ends on a happy bump.
Whut? I’m still confused too, don’t worry. I think the big thing here is to try and make sense of this play, because every time I read it I FEEL like it is awesome. But every time I see it, I feel disappointed. I really can feel the potential when I read The American Dream. Please forgive that slightly ironically funny representation of the plot, because while it is a zany show, it definitely tackles some big things about how American is becoming a giant façade, and how the modern family dynamic isn’t really a family anymore. This show has some big issues, and really can show them off beautifully. This is due to a few key choices by Albee.
The first, obviously, is the use of expressionism. Characters in this play are named by what they are or what they do. Realism is so far from the goal here that it becomes kind of comical to try and imagine this as a straight play. In fact, using the lack of realism gives the play room to talk about serious issues like America essentially ruining itself behind this fake screen of corporations, material goods, and popular garbage. It could not make the bold nation-wide statements it pushes forward if it had been a realistic play. Either people would grow angry at the play, and turn off the idea of being affected, or they would push away the ideas as “more boring political dribble,” and file it away to never be used again. By keeping the audience on their toes, little bitty nuggets of delicious information sneak on in there, like how the American Dream, as a character, is a hollowed shell. There is not real wall separating that message. The American Dream is a hollow shell of its former self. I don’t think we could’ve said it that plainly if we hadn’t just spent half an hour or more readjusting our audiences perceptions of this reality.
This makes the second relevant dramaturgical choice to be
the motif of forgetfulness. People in this play are forgetting where they put
things, what other people are saying to them, why they invited Mrs. Barker to
their house, the previous services she has done for them, and even the rules of
society. When in doubt, they feel free to invent an answer. This choice has the
brilliant effect of making every answer suspect. Again, it works in a similar
vein to the zaniness of expressionism. If we don’t trust anything that is said
or happens, then we’ll really use our brain to deduce our own truths. We may
accidentally think for a while on the message of the play, which is the
destruction of our country from within, much like this family did to itself.
So, give the play a shot. I don’t know how well it is to be staged, but I can imagine in my head a very zippy, zany, almost comical play on this script that would be very effective, especially when it slowed down and sobered up to really deliver the messages of the play. It is definitely worth reading. Just maybe not worth watching as much…
So, give the play a shot. I don’t know how well it is to be staged, but I can imagine in my head a very zippy, zany, almost comical play on this script that would be very effective, especially when it slowed down and sobered up to really deliver the messages of the play. It is definitely worth reading. Just maybe not worth watching as much…