ABSTRACT
DEBUSSCHER’s short but influential study-the first booklength work on Albeeoffers succinct analyses of the pre-1967 plays, including adaptations. Steeped in the contemporary critical debates that surrounded Albee’s early offerings, the book nonetheless locates the plays within broad historical traditions: the Ibsen-and Strindberginfluenced modern American drama on the one hand, and the postwar French absurdist drama on the other. Debusscher lauds Albee for successfully synthesizing these traditions, for experimenting-like Eugene O’Neill-with numerous genres (naturalism, surrealism, expressionism, symbolism, farce, tragicomedy, and allegory), and for developing a dazzling theatrical style that fuses “minute observation…and wild invention”. Yet Debusscher suspects Albee’s moral intent. Echoing the now too-dated charge of early Albee critics-and drawing too heavily on scattered biographical details-Debusscher denounces Albee as a nihilist soaked in sexuality, impotence, and death, savaging society merely to validate his private obsessions. Some of Debusscher’s views significantly color several later studies.
