One of the greatest plays ever written, in my opinion, is The American Dream by Edward Albee. Of course I’m partial as I studied with the man for a year, and he produced my writing and coached me as a writer and human and teacher—I owe him A LOT. But I digress. He’d be disappointed.
The American Dream takes place in the living room of Mommy and Daddy. Grandma lives with them but is being packed off because she is old. Mommy is domineering, Daddy is weak. In the scope of Mr. Albee’s work, these characters are familiar as they resemble his own adopted family in the Hamptons. As a man raised in wealth and privilege, Mr. Albee gratefully swung left of that and instead embraced free thought, art, expression and teaching.
There is a level of intellect necessary to process-let alone enjoy- Mr. Albee’s work. I do not feel like a snob saying this. Overall the intellectual capacity of people who attend plays over musicals is superior. It takes an understanding of language, philosophy and the human condition as well as stamina to sit through three hours of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Which I did–at the Alley theatre—because Mr. Albee directed it.
He was insistent that playwrights do not direct or act in their own work until after the first production. He said you can’t stop editing and fully engage in the power of your words if you’re always editing. I’d say he’s right. And I’ll also say I've acted in my own work, but only after it was produced the first time. It’s a way to get perspective, so many writers exist in a vacuum, and I guess that’s great if you’ve the confidence and ego—I’m looking at you David Mamet—but the rest of us value distance and another voice.
I blame Mr. Albee for my vocational choice to teach. I was full on going into theatre–acting sometimes, directing a bit but primarily writing. I wanted to Be A Playwright. That was my version of “the American Dream”, to do What You Love fully and make a living at it.
This was not my mom’s American Dream. Hers was tied to getting married and having kids and a home. That generation is the only one —arguably—that fully received the true American Dream: work an honest job for a good salary that allows you to buy a house and a car, an occasional vacation and retirement. The American Dream they were sold worked out for them, which is problematic when it comes to them understanding the struggles other generations fought through later. They elbowed their kids into it, and we are not OK–let alone recipients of the dream. Greed took hold of America in the 1980’s and never let go. Those unwilling to play Wall Street were left out. Left to lesser salaries as nurses, teachers, mechanics, clerks, cosmetologists, oil rig workers. Paid less to contribute to society, as inflation rose exponentially but salaries did not keep pace. The Trumpers sold empty bonds and hollow stocks to line their own pockets. And now our own children, who understand the fragility of the dream by calling out The Dream itself as false, will never have one career that pays the bills and buys a home,get married. Raise kids. Enjoy retirement.
I feel like I let them down. I have never voted for a presidential candidate that won–a dubious distinction. Twice I voted against someone, not for someone.
I think Gen X means we’re the generation at the crossroads. Our kids will be the ones to walk the change across the finish line, but not until the billionaire boomers and tech turds are struck down. Our job is to use everything we have in us to keep them afloat. And that does mean financially as well. Even those with “good” college degrees find themselves unable to find work in an oversaturated field, or up against massive Trump cuts to research and environmental support. My oldest is very into art/work trade—they’ll cut someone’s hair in trade for vegetables from their client’s garden. This is going to be the future, the way we will have to function when the financial apocolypse explodes. This will be how we respond after being bombed back into the stone age by corporate greed and unhinged gluttony.
The American Dream was pure once, but always fragile. It relies on everyone —government and society—working together to keep us all afloat.
Eat the rich is only the beginning. We must build a new society and make sure this never happens again.
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My beloved Mr. Albee died in 2016. The same year we lost Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Carrie Fisher. They saw this coming and ducked out.
They are collectively people who never bought into the American Dream, in any capacity. They saw it as both fragile and corrupt. Tenuous and false.
A Lie.
Mr. Albee's scope of work scathes the ideaologies that prop up the American Dram. For a man adopted into a rich family and given the freedom to float around Greenwich and Be Gay, he had no issue biting the hand that fed him.
He held the honor of a Pulitzer committe member quitting because Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was "vulgar". He never finished a traditional Bachlor's degree because he didn't want to take math. He bounced through universities like a bee gathering honey, getting the art and literature education he wanted, and leaving when they tried to force him to take classes he had no interest in.
The first time I had a piece read out loud in the playwriting class---which was the precursor to production the next year---I sat next to the actor who read my words at the front of the room and faced Mr. Albee. I curled into a ball which he only sneered at. Not cruel, just his way of letting me know that wasn't going to work. I was there voluntarily for his feedback, and I was going to hear his feedback.
The first day of that class, he said "I can't teach you to be playwrights." He had that low growl of a voice and persistent twinkle in his eye that let us know he both meant that and did not mean it.
What he taught me was how to think. How to listen, how to respond. How to write exactly what I want to communicate and how to stick to the central theme.
And how to teach.
Without knowing it, I was not being trained as a playwright. I was being taught to teach.
I was still and English major when he chose my work for his class. By the end of that class, I'd switched back to theatre.
I blame Mr. Albee for many things and one is dragging me back into theatre. Which --to be clear--he said nothing. He cared naught for degrees or titles. There were English majors in both production classes the two years I worked with him. It was the collaborative nature of theatre that I missed. That pulled me back.
HOW AM I GETTING A MONOLOGUE OUT OF THIS
The first time I ever heard my own words read by an actor, outloud in front of people---people who were also writers, and a professor who was a Broadway legend--- was in Mr. Albee's playwriting class. I worked with him for two years, and he kept insisting we call him "Edward". He even introduced himself to my husband at a cast party as "Edward". I could never do it.
I sat at the front of the room next to my friend who had read the piece, pulled my knees to my face and wrapped my arms around my knees. Mr. Albee glowered. Once you got to know him, you knew that look and the perpetual twinkle in his eye. He was not cruel, he was just right and he had the Pulitzer and Tonys to back him up. And you were chosen---over three hundred writing samples were submitted for this class of ten people. The production class---the next step, where Mr. Albee would produce your play on the UH stage--was even smaller. That year it was three plays being produced. The following year---the year I was selected---it was four.
My class that year was literally the audition class for the following production year. The ten of us plus whomoever applied from outside. This year, the year I was just in the clas, I also stagemanaged one of the productions. The playwright-Kevin- wasn't even enrolled, he was a local playwright
So no pressure.
I sat and received all of his feedback, wordlessly. I wasn't angry and I didn't shut down: I listened. As he spoke to my piece, I sorted through every syllable. I breathed in every word, and exhaled the word with my feelings attached.
He wasn't wrong.
Absolutely everything he said was correct, and I made adjustments in my head before ever getting to the keyboard.
Then it was my classmates' turn to give me feedback on my writing. The difference in feedback cannot be understated. Some wanted to impress Mr. Albee by sounding very intellectual (mostly English majors), and some wanted clarification for certain allusions in the script (theatre majors), and some gave nothing but positve feedback for the effort, but clearly did not believe I belonged among their ranks (English Masters' majors). My friend Paul was the only one who just spoke like a person to a person.
Paul and I both felt like frauds in this class. Paul wasn't a 'reader', he liked Star Trek. Albee would push the reading agenda, and while I could respond because I read, just not always intellectual material, I could contribute to conversations. When Paul was called out by Albee to contribute, he was honest but not belligerent. He's not a stupid person (he has his Masters n English and works in Spring Texas at an alternative high school), and he doesn't judge himself as less. Also, he was chosen with me the following year. Proving that being authentic is the best approach. I've alwas attributed that to the Entitled White Man Comfort. Where as I--a skinny white woman with myriad self esteem issues--would have lied if I had to to look better.
But I never had to. Because Mr. Albee believed I could write, and he believed I could take criticism and he even bought me lunch once to talk about my play.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MONOLOGUE
I suppose that's ultimately why I becamse a teacher. To believe in kids who would otherwise sit with their knees in their face, curled up into a ball. To let them know that feedback is relevent, and your response and defense is irrelevent. Learn or don't. It's on you.
But I believe that you can, because I was taught by the best.
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