Contemporary drama

EDWARD ALBEE (*1928) is the most influential playwright still alive who appeared when Miller and Williams were declining. He was adopted by a millionaire family, received the finest education but he was expelled for not going to church and smoking on campus. He was also politically active and supported Czech absurd drama of Václav Havel and urged Havel to be freed from jail.

His first successful play was The Zoo Story (1958) an avant-garde play compared to an Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, though; the style is not the same. The play that made him really popular was Death of Bessie Smith (1959), dedicated to his grandmother he really liked from the whole family. It deals with racism and depicts a real event of a female singer who died in a car accident since the white nurse refused to help her. Albee was critical of The American Dream (1960) in the same entitled autobiographical play about a rich couple who put their old parent to senior house because they did not need them anymore.

Who´s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) is an absurdist play that takes place during one night when a married couple is having an argument and pretends they have a child. She accuses him of not earning enough, he blames her for not having children. In the end of an absurd conversation they kill the fictional child.

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2002) is his most controversial play Albee wrote because he thought people are bored and nothing can shock them anymore. It depicts on the first sight a happy family. Martin is an acclaimed 50-year-old architect who loves his wife Stevie dearly and even though their son Billy is a homosexual, they came to terms with it. Stevie is preparing Martin’s birthday party and his long-time friend Ross comes to make an interview with him because Martin even got architecture prize. However, Ross notices that something is troubling his best friend. Pressured by Ross, Martin admits he fell in love while visiting countryside and is seeing his lover for 6 months now. He shows a picture of his love and…it’s a goat. Ross is speechless: “You’re fucking a goat.”When Stevie and Billy discovers the secret, Billy calls his dad in affection “goat fucker” while Martin calls him “fucking faggot.” Martin then admits he went to a therapy with a group of people with a similar love interests. However, it disappointed him as these people were ashamed of what they have been doing while Martin sincerely loves Sylvia and argues “what’s wrong with being in love like that.”

Stevie sees it as cheating but Martin still deeply love his wife, he loves them both. In fact, he was so faithful his whole life that his friends believe he must have had many secret lovers. He describes that he fell in love “with those pure trusting innocent eyes” and it does not matter they belong to a goat, it could have been an alien, whatever. The moment on the meadow was an epiphany for him that he is able to fall in love with souls, not species. Stevie angrily leaves, saying “you destroyed me, I’ll destroy you.” Billy returns and they make up, they understood each other and even kiss. Ross is horrified upon seeing the father and the son kissing and reminds his friend zoophilia is illegal and if the word comes out, his whole life would be ruined. Ross only wants to prevail his friend’s reputation, he does not care about his soul in a religious sense. Stevie returns, dragging a dead goat and leaving everybody speechless.

 DAVID MAMET (*1947) /memit/ was born to a Jewish family in Chicago and became famous for the quality of his precisely crafted dialogues for maximum poetic effect. His play The Duck Variations (1971) depicts a discussion between two elderly men sitting on a park bench and watching ducks. They are comparing the behaviour of ducks to human relationships. The irony is that the men know nothing about ducks or human relationship.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) depicts sexual lives of two men and two women in 1970s, it is full of Chicago's working-class dialect. Oleanna (1992) features the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students who accused him of sexual exploitation. Romance (2005) is a comedian farce, provocative and postmodernist, set in a court room. The judge is allergic to medications, constantly falls asleep and turns to a manic stripping in the middle of the court. American Buffalo.

TONY KUSHNER (*1956) was born to a Jewish family and is famous for co-authorship of the film Munich (2005) directed by Steven Spielberg. He is fond of extremely black humour and similarly to O'Neill uses actors playing multiple characters.

His best-known controversial play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (1993) is set in New York in the 1980s. All characters are homosexual and features HIV (at that time still poorly understood disease), struggle to reconcile religion with sexuality and love for America versus America’s homophobia. The play contains heavy biblical reference as  one character claims to be visited by an angel who proclaims him as a prophet, references to American society and Jewish-American identity.

SAM SHEPARD (*1943) is known for his often absurd plays and is also a respected actor. He is known for his collaboration with Bob Dylan.

His play Buried Child (1978) won a Pulitzer Prize and features an American farmer family full of suppressed violence and madness. Grandfather is an alcoholic, grandmother pretends to go to church and have drinking sessions with minister, one son is mentally handicapped, the second cut his leg with a chainsaw. Into their midst comes a grandson none of them recognises and his girlfriend who cannot comprehend the madness to which she is suddenly introduced. The family harbours a dark secret – years earlier the grandfather buried an unwanted baby, creating a cloud of guild which lifts when one person takes the child’s mummified remains and carries it to his mother under the belief that reunion will heal the family and past will be forgotten.

  

ARTHUR LEE KOPIT (*1937) became known for his absurdist farces. His popular play Oh, Dad, Poor Dad (1967) tells a story of a family which goes for a vacation to a tropical island to get some relaxation. The only problem is that the husband has been dead for quite some time and his wife had him stuffed and carries him around with her because the holiday was already paid for and she does not want to spoil it. Indians (1968) features settling the Wild West, mytholigising frontier genre of Western and the figure of cowboy showman Buffalo Bill, later adapter into a movie.