The Study On Edward Albee’s Plays

Edward Albee (Edward Albee1928-) is the most important avant-garde playwright ofUnited States in the second half of the20th century, and an important representative of theabsurdist playwright. He innovates and rebels overall play style of realism in20th centurymedium-term of United States, though absurdist theatre’s performance style, though obscure,ambiguous, the witty comic drama language, multiple, complex and deep United States dramatheme. As America’s foremost playwright, he did a great deal to establish the modes of themodern theatre in the United States. Albee has obtained three times Pulitzer award, arerespectively A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1994).Hewon Tony lifelong achievements award, and lifelong achievements Pioneer Award. Theinnovation and experiment in his play, so his plays have multiple styles and complex dramatheme.Albee boarded the stage of American drama in20th century, which is the importantperiod of crisis of American drama. Albee innovate theatrical narrative forms and content,injects fresh blood in American drama stage, and renews United States played prosperity andfull of vitality. Many-faceted art appear behind Albee’s dramas. National academic circleresearch began relatively late. The field of research tends to concentrate on the early parts ofthe plays. There are only9books have translated into Chinese. In addition, the domesticacademic research perspectives single and intolerant, and are suspected of label to Albee. Thisarticle uses more angle integrated theory vision research Albee’s plays, find the association inAlbee’s plays and United States traditional plays, European absurdity plays. And this articleresearches Albee’s plays in plays theme, plays figures, plays structure, and plays language, tofind his plays’ aspects of described style, described mode, and creation features.In this paper, I study the innovation and breakthrough from form to content in to themodern and contemporary drama, the creation of artistic features in his plays. He has animportant value and significance of research on American drama. First of all, this article uses the macroscopic Angle, comprehensive analysis and research Albee’s plays’ dramaticcharacteristic, make up the lack of domestic research on Albee’s plays. This article correctssingle drama research Angle and intolerance of domestic academic circles on research ofAlbee’s plays. Secondly, this article discusses which methods and measures Albee use tochange American drama stage, and save the crisis of American drama form and content. Again,this article researches the characteristics of Albee’s drama from the writing to the stage toprovide important reference value for domestic drama. Finally, the study of Albee’s dramawill boost domestic American plays’ translation and research in depth and breadth, strengthenexchanges on the drama.Albee’s plays have historical reasons and reflect inherent law of dramatic language aswell. This article explores the continuity and superiority between Albee’s drama, theatre ofAbsurd and American traditional drama from three perspectives: the philosophy of drama,theatrical background and the language of drama.This article divided the themes in Albee’s drama into three categories: ethical distortionin American family; the broken American dream in American social; and alienation andabsurdity of philosophy theme. American dream is one of the important characteristics ofAlbee drama theme. This article has a detailed analysis of the dominant archetypal symbols tothe theme of broken American dream. Albee deepens and expands connotation and denotationof theme in American drama though philosophical theme of alienation and absurdity hasimportant effect to American plays in the late20th century.Albee rebels traditional drama characters concept, on the one hand, cuts characters offreality, deny the truth of characters; On the other hand, the characters have the characteristicsof typing, show dehumanization features of division and alienation. Albee’s characters havethe characteristics of symbolization, typed, dehumanization, marginalized, which is Albee’smain contribution to the diversification of American drama characterization technique,reflects the absurdity of human existence, unreasonable situation, to encourage people torecognize reality and face the reality.Albee breaks away from the traditional American narrative drama structure, usesmulti-dimensional form on the technique of expression in drama. He uses the ritualized formwhich combined with the play-within-a-play which is the key polyphonic in his plays. Heachieves the purpose of the deconstruction of traditional drama structure by lock closedflashbacks abnormal drama, which presented expression of complexity, absurdity directly onthe drama stage to the reader and the audience. The drama structure on Albee’s play ismulti-level, three-dimensional, which is inevitable requirement of form development to saves drama crisis.Albee play dialogue goes far beyond the traditional United States drama languageexpressions. The main manifestation of Albee’s plays is the absurdity of language drama,which fuses funny or vulgar, absurdity sexual plays language of United States plays, whichare the obvious features in Albee’s plays. He dismantles the traditional basic table of theatricallanguage and communicative functions language, reconstructs new aesthetic languagestandard of American drama. He provides new methods, new perspective in theatricalmanifestation of language and illustrate.Albee introduces absurd drama into American theatre, innovates mediocre, rigid inAmerican theatre’s stage. He has broken the immobilization of dramatic dialogue patterns,traditional themes, characters, play structure in American theatre. Albee deconstructs thetraditional mode of theatrical creation by collage, hybrid, parody, and rebuilds and developsthree-dimensional, multiple play presentation. His plays are direct expression of alienation ofhuman nature through anti-traditional style, anti-traditional models, and anti-traditional dramalanguage. His plays’ contribution to American theatre reflects in the rebellion and innovationof the traditional drama. He provides a variety of methods and possibilities to save theAmerican theatre crisis. His Spirit of unremitting exploration and experimentation sets animportant example for later American dramatists. Today, Edward Albee becomes evergreentrees in the history of American theatre, and recognized as one of the best-known dramatic artmaster.