A Study Guide for Edward Albee's "American Dream"
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A Study Guide for Edward Albee's "American Dream" - Gale
08
The American Dream
Edward Albee
1961
Introduction
First produced in late January 1961 at the York Playhouse in New York City, The American Dream was conceived by Edward Albee as a critique of the culture and social ideals of America in the aftermath of World War II. The world of the play is one of bourgeois (affluent middle class) sensibilities and a seemingly pointless veneer of small talk and dull conversation. On the surface, it is a play about a generation dedicated to getting satisfaction (an important word in Albee's play) without doing any of the hard work necessary to build a satisfying life. More deeply, as Albee himself has stated, The American Dream is a play about the substitution of artificial for real values in this society of ours.
Lingering barely below the seemingly trivial surface of The American Dream, moreover, is a destructive and often sadistic world. It is a world in which language is used to bludgeon, to manipulate, and to hide rather than illuminate the emotions that come to define a caring and cultured world. As the audience is drawn deeper and deeper into the world of the play, Albee pulls back layers of the veneer as a chef might peel an onion. With each exchange, the Dreams that accumulate during the course of the play (of prosperity, of love, and of family, to name but a few) fall away, revealing a world that is on the cusp of slipping forever into a nightmarish cycle of mutilation and destruction.
Two Plays by Edward Albee: The American Dream and The Zoo Story, Signet, 1961, was released more recently by Plume in 1997.
Author Biography
Edward Albee was born on March 12, 1928 in Washington, DC. He was adopted in infancy by the millionaire Reed Albee, the son of a famous vaudeville producer, who moved the family back to Larchmont, New York. Brought into a family of great affluence, Albee was never comfortable, clashing frequently with his stepmother, who attempted to keep him away from the theater life and to shape him into what she considered a respectable man of elevated social standing. He attended Rye Country Day School before moving to the Lawrenceville School, from which he was expelled. He entered the Valley Forge Military Academy (Wayne, Pennsylvania) in 1943, graduating in 1945. His education continued at Choate Rosemary Hall (Wallingford, Connecticut) and then at Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut). He