The American Dream

by Edward Albee

The American Dream, one-act drama by Edward Albee, published in 1959 (with The Zoo Story) and first produced in 1961. This brief absurdist drama established the playwright as an astute, acerbic critic of American values.

The American Dream addresses issues of childlessness and adoption. The play’s central figures, Mommy and Daddy, represent banal American life. Clubwoman Mrs. Barker visits, and Grandma reminds her of an earlier visit, when she brought an infant. This child did not turn out as Mommy and Daddy expected and so was abused by them until it died. When a handsome but emotionless young man -the American Dream- later arrives, Grandma suggests that Mommy and Daddy adopt him, since his emptiness seems to be what they desire.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, American, Fiction, Literature, School

89 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Noted American playwright Edward Franklin Albee explored the darker aspects of human relationships in plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and Three Tall Women (1991), which won his third Pulitzer Prize.

People know Edward Franklin Albee III for works, including The Zoo Story , The Sandbox and The American Dream .
He well crafted his works, considered often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflected a mastery and Americanization of the theater of the absurd, which found its peak in European playwrights, such as Jean Genet, Samuel Barclay Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel credits daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue of Albee with helping to reinvent the postwar theater in the early 1960s. Dedication of Albee to continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (2000) — also routinely marks him as distinct of his era.

Albee described his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."

Reviews

[Momina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have "money makes the world go round, the world go around" from Minnelli’s Cabaret playing in my head after reading this play. And rightly so, for it does--well, at least in the world of modern American playwrights (Miller, especially) it does make the world go round as everything else loses its significance. Should I tell you the story of this typical Albee-an family which is symptomatic of a terrible thing going wrong with our world? Mommy and Daddy are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, only set in a different absurdist, almost Beckettian world, where “bumbles” are dispensable, almost substitutable for the chase of “The American Dream--the always elusive “pursuit of happiness” that is always, unfortunately, sought in the wrong places.

P.S. One reviewer here writes that this play is like Waiting for Godot with a lot less depth. Sure, in terms of aesthetics, but it’s located in a different world than Beckett’s. Albee has nothing to do with the absurdity of the universe and on making existentially authentic choices to give our otherwise superfluous existence some purpose! He’s about bumbles, man! He’s about the death of innocence, of the breakdown of family structures, he’s about ambition and chasing the wrong dreams, about the reconstruction of value systems, about things more local and immediate than, say, the meaning of life.

(Which is 42, by the way, if anyone’s interested. :P)

(On second thought, what could be more local and immediate than knowing the meaning of life! Uh.....)

Do read Albee. I don’t know why this play has only 68 ratings here (bizarre!), but for whatever my advice is worth, this guy is important and pretty terrific!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

جزو نمايشنامه هاي نه چندان مطرح البي ه و خب با شاهكاري مثل داستان باغ وحش قابل مقايسه نيست هر چند به لحاظ زماني بعد از اون نوشته شده (هنوز موفق به پيدا كردن نسخه انگليسي كي از ويرجينيا ولف ميترسه نشدم، اگر كسي داره ممنونم ميشم به اشتراك بذاره) با اين حال نويد شكوفايي يك نمايشنامه نويس عجيب غريب و موفق رو به
صراحت ميده.

در ستايش اين كتاب همين بس كه اسلين تو تئاتر ابزرد مشخصا تاكيد كرده كه اين نمايشنامه اولين نمايشنامه ي آمريكاييه كه محتوا و فرم ابزرد رو همزمان داره:

“Albee produced a play that clearly takes up the style and subject-matter of the Theatre of the Absurd and translates it into a genuine American idiom. The American Dream (1959-60; first performed at the York Playhouse, New York, on 24 January 1961) fairly and squarely attacks the ideals of progress, optimism, and faith in the national mission, and pours scorn on the sentimental ideals of family life, togetherness, and physical fitness; the euphemistic language and unwillingness to face the ultimate facts of the human condition that in America, even more than in Europe, represent the essence of bourgeois assumptions and attitudes.”

و بعد خود البي هم در مقدمه همين نمايشنامه گفته:

"It is an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation, and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."

[Pooya Kiani · Rating 3 out of 5]

این متن اصلا و ابدا در حد و اندازه‌ی داستان باغ وحش یا چه کسی از ویرجینیا وولف می ترسد نیست. و همینطور در حد بقیه‌ی شاهکارهای ابزورد. تمام حدود و ویژگی‌های مختص ابزوردیته رعایت شده، اما اون چیزی رو که از یه اثر هنری انتظار می‌ره برآورده نمی‌کنه. اقلا من رو راضی نکرد. البته نقاط دوست‌داشتنی و لذت‌بخش زیادی داره که خوندنی‌ش می‌کنه. ولی این کجا و اون چیزی که از آلبی انتظار می‌‌ره کجا.

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mix of Lewis Carroll and Jacques Tati. (Most GR reviews of this play are on another GR site that combines The American Dream with The Zoo Story. I suggest you go there). Mommy, Daddy, the Club Woman and Young Man collide in this satiric thrust into US suburban life. Albee's best play, followed by Three Tall Women.

[Lucy De Geyseleer · Rating 5 out of 5]

not at all what i was expecting

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absurdist satire on the American Dream and especially the ideal family.

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple lost in the race for happiness and the elusive American Dream morphed unintentionally into something absurd and incredibly loud.

[Federica · Rating 3 out of 5]

albee mi lascia sempre molto confusa

[Andrea Janov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not my favorite of the plays. Though the absurdity hits you so wonderfully by the end, it was a struggle to get there.

[Rach · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try and I try and I TRY WITH ALBEE BUT I CAN'T. *read for school, not for pleasure, btw*

[Ophelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh theatre of absurd, you are as great as you are confusing

[Georgie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh but Albee understood the narcissistic suburban adopter! the eternal dissatisfaction, why not fully commit?

[Craig Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a word, 'quirky'... that's all I can say. My wife and I were given two copies of this script (that was bundled with 3 other plays by Albee), and was told that 'it's quirky'. No doubt about that... so many non-sequiturs from beginning to end that almost every page one stops and says "Wait... What???". This was presented as an idea for a readers theater performance (we've done Shel Silverstein material in that format, and this is actually mild in the quirky department), unfortunately I can't see that some of the dialogue would have the same impact as if it were staged as a play without the readers theater reading of the script.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like ‘The Sandbox’, this play too fits in to the epithet, ‘theatre of the absurd’. The state of affairs in this play is developed along the lines of the absurdist drama. Albee here portrays the ‘American way of life’ as one in which standard human mind-set and relationships have been rundown and dispossessed of all meaning. The signs of love, sexual attraction, parental fondness, family sentiment and warmth remain, but the authentic feelings which would give meaning to the gestures have gone. What is most fascinating and eerie is that the characters in this play are the same as in ‘The Sandbox’ — namely Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, and the Young Man.

[Iamthesword · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little disappointed (but only a little). After ZOO STORY, I expected another banger. It's still a fine play though. It reminded me of Ionesco's LA CANTATRICE CHAUVE (The Bald Soprano) with the nonsense dialogue, but slower paced and less hilarious. It is a solid critique of the American Dream, but not on the level of eg DEATH OF A SALESMAN. I guess what I want to say is this: This play doesn't do anything wrong, but it neither excels in anything - I caught myself thinking more about other plays that did this or that aspect better (like the ones mentioned above). It still makes an nice and quick read.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play, like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, was a difficult read. I will have to read critiques and reread it to completely understand what was going on. I loved the exagerated stereotypes of American family members, and the grandma rocks. That's all I can really say for now.

[Lavvynder Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of this modern play format. Not to mention the content of this play is absolutely bizarre. While the commentary this play is making might be fascinating, the storyline is too odd to enjoy.

[Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

An absurdist commentary on how the American Dream affects our society and what it means to be a part of the American Dream today.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this while waiting for the avett brothers.

[Riel · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Julia Florek Turcan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cross between Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Pillowman.

[Arisarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

well, i did get satisfaction!

[Shawn Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And just what is The American Dream (a comedy, yet) that so upsets these guardians of the public morality? The play is an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen.

Is the play offensive? I certainly hope so; it was my intention to offend--as well as amuse and entertain. Is it nihilist, immoral, defeatist? Well, to that let me answer that The American Dream is a picture of our time--as I see it, of course. Every honest work is a personal, private yowl, a statement of one individual's pleasure or pain; but I hope that The American Dream is something more than that. I hope it transcends the personal and private, and has something to do with the anguish of us all."
- Edward Albee (New York City, 24 May 1961)

[Ahmad El-Saeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

العلاقة بين الاسرة الامريكية وبعضها البعض، وتعرض هذه المسرحية العلاقات الاجتماعية الخاصة بالمجتمع الامريكي داخل الاسرة الواحدة بتسمية كلاً من افراد تلك الاسرة بأسماء مجردة إنما يصبح الرجل فيها Daddy و الام Mommy والجدة Grandma على اساس ان كلاً منهم يرمز إلي الفرد الخاص بالعائلة في الاسرة الامريكية.


فيه الاب العاجز عن اداء الجنس بشكل مرض للأم، والام هي المثال الخاص للامهات السليطات الذين يعاملون ازواجهم بطريقة بشعة، أما الجدة فهي لا تنظر إلي الي مصلحتها الشخصية ونفعها كما انها تنعت ابنتها بأبشع الشتائم والاوصاف ولا تكتف بذلك بس وأيضاً عن طريق فضح اسرارها المشينة، اما الطفلة فهي ترى أنها عندما تكبر تود ان تتزوج من رجل غني ولا تهتم إلا بالمال فقط لا غير، والشاب او الابن فهو مثال للنموذج الامريكي الذي لا يملك إلا جسده الذي يفكر به ويستخدمه ويثير غرائز الجدة.

[Mms Mamdouh Al Shamy · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I no longer have the capacity to feel anything. I have no emotions. I have been drained, torn asunder....disemboweled. I have, now, only my person....my body, my face. I use what I have....I let people love me....I accept the syntax around me, for while I know I cannot relate....I know I must be related to. I let people love me....I let people touch me.....I let them draw pleasure from my groin....from my presence....from the fact of me....but, that is all it comes to."

[margot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think this was my favorite! I still don't think Edward Albee's plays can quite live up to the high first impression I got from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but I also think I am a little burned out with the absurd. I don't feel like the relationships were as fleshed out as I would have liked. This play is like if death of a salesman and the glass menagerie had a baby.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Albee's more resonant one-acts that I've read so far. Maybe because I myself am aging? Maybe because aging parents are taking... more... or a different kind of... time/attention? Anyway, for when you'd rather see Albee turn his acerbic eye and tongue to something other than marital strife, this could be the one for you.

[Binish Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I no longer have the capacity to feel anything. I have no emotions. I have been drained, torn asunder … disemboweled. I have, now, only my person … my body, my face. I use what I have … I let people love me … I accept the syntax around me, for while I know I cannot relate … I know I must be related to."

[Eskil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dette stykket fikk meg virkelig til å ønske at alle skuespill var like korte. "Angels in America" er kanskje kjempebra, men det er veldig langt. Albee, derimot, klarer å få meg til å le, tenke og bli trist på bare 60 små sider.

[Angelee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less enjoyable and more convoluted of his single sceners, but in that, more challenging and suitable for study of absurdist theater. A hard read in the 2020s when it doesn’t say anything provocative or contemplative by today’s standards. Mostly just a slight commentary on its title.