Year

1969

Text

Type

Publication

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Chronology Entries (1)

#	Year	Text	Linked Data
1	1969	Albee, Edward. Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung [ID D32172]. [Excerpts]. Introduction. While it is true that these two short plays—Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung—are separate works, were conceived at different though not distant moments, stand by themselves, and can be played one without the company of the other, I feel that they are more effective performed enmeshed. Even more... Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung would most probably not have been written had not Box been composed beforehand, and Mao is, therefore, an outgrowth of and extension of the shorter play. As well, I have attempted, in these two related plays, several experiments having to do—in the main—with the application of musical form to dramatic structure, and the use of Box as a parenthesis around Mao is part of that experiment. I may as well insist right now that these two plays are quite simple. By that I mean that while technically they are fairly complex and they do demand from an audience quite close attention, their content can be apprehended without much difficulty. All that one need do is—quite simply—relax and let the plays happen. That, and be willing to approach the dramatic experience without a pre¬conception of what the nature of the dramatic experience should be. I recall that when a play of mine called Tiny Alice opened in New York City a few years ago the majority of the critics wrote in their reviews—such as they were— that the play was far too complicated and obscure for the audience to understand. Leaving to one side the thoughts one might have about the assumption on the part of the critics that what they found confusing would necessarily confound an audience, this reportage had a most curious effect on the audiences that viewed the play. At the preview performances of Tiny Alice the audiences—while hardly to a man sympathetic to the play—found it quite clear; while later—after the critics had spoken on it—the audiences were very confused. The play had not changed one whit; a label had merely been attached to it, and what was experienced was the label and not the nature of the goods. A playwright—unless he is creating escapist romances (an honorable occupation, of course)—has two obligations: first, to make some statement about the condition of "man" (as it is put) and, second, to make some statement about the nature of the art form with which he is working. In both instances he must attempt change. In the first instance—since very few serious plays are written to glorify the status quo—the playwright must try to alter his society; in the second instance—since art must move, or wither—the playwright must try to alter the forms within which his precursors have had to work. And I be¬lieve that an audience has an obligation to be interested in and sympathetic to these aims—certainly to the second of them. Therefore, an audience has an obligation (to itself, to the art form in which it is participating, and even to the playwright) to be willing to experience a work on its own terms. I said before that these two plays are simple (as well as complex), and they are simple once they are experienced relaxed and without a weighing of their methods against more familiar ones. Sekundärliteratur Bai Niu : Albee's plays are highly experimental in nature : Box represents only a distorted cube and a recorded voice ; in Quotations, the four characters have no direct verbal communications. Mao just quotes himself from his little red book and the Old Woman simply recites sentimental doggerel by Will Carleton. Over half of the play is to Albee's credit only as recreation through fragmentation and juxtaposition, along with a couple of revisions, of those quotations. Part of the experiment, as Albee himself explains, is 'the use of Box as a parenthesis around Mao'. In fact, Mao is framed by the Box both literally and figuratively. And this relationship between the framing and the framed is the most important and dynamic aspect of the play in both theatrical and thematic terms. Albee selects and rearranges the quotations not at random but with a specific concentration in mind. Another important feature of Albee's methodology is that he does not always quote the whole excerpt from 'The little red book'. Here and there, the actual speeches in his play are excerpts or 'quotations' from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. [Peking : Foreign Langugages Press, 1966]. What Albee wants is a general, and possibly depoliticized, contrast between Mao's China and 'U.S. imperialists'. As a result of Albee's selection and rearrangement of those quotations, Mao could be seen as representing a somewhat abstract but consistently strong, aggressive, vital, and self-confident force determined to defeat the increasingly isolated 'paper tigers' – U.S. imperialism and its running dogs, who are still making trouble everywhere, but actually fast approaching death. The framing Box endows the relationship between the Mao and the Western characters with certain mythical potentialities. The correspondence between Mao and the bird flying in the opposite direction in the Box is murky and indeterminate. This ambiguity allows a mythical reading of Mao and at the same time invites transgression of its boundary. To read Mao as a myth presupposes a suppression of history, but Mao's speeches are too historical and political to be treated, in a sustained manner, as something transhistorical or apolitical. The tension between Mao as a myth and Mao as a communist dictator creates much dynamic ambiguity. If the West is the Self, Mao, as a Chinese figure, is obviously the Other representing the East. The mythologized Mao is just such a mirror that Albee uses to identify the West. Albee is unwilling to negate the Self without any reservation. He still loves the civilization too much, despite all its corruption, to abandon it for the 'Other'. Albee could employ Mao to signify the direction of reform without embracing Communist revolution. The indeterminacy of Mao's function achieves clarity and accuracy. In his musical experiment Albee is able to create polyphonic effect on various levels : first, the 'interactions' between different speeches, including that of the voice ; second, the framing and transgressing relationship between the Box and Quotations ; and finally, since the audience's or the reader's active participation is absolutely required, there exists a mandatory dialogue between them and the play. Albee's experiment is not merely for the sake of experiment ; his choice of the musical form is intended to serve his purpose of reflecting the complexity of the reality of Western civilization and contemplating the function of arts as well as the responsibility of an artist. Albee does not impose an unequivocal authorial voice upon his audience, since the issues he wants to dramatize are complicated and do not have ready solutions. The upshot of the polyphonic effect is an enrichment of the theme of the play. The play is a protest of a declining civilization, of the degeneration of arts and other components of life, but it is not only a protest in opposition. It is a 'protest used to be in favor of something', as Albee himself put it in an interview. The play also pints out hope, in a prevailing atmosphere of despair, by presenting the bird flying in the opposite direction and the mythologized Mao, and thus advocates change. From Albee's use of the Mao myth in these interrelated plays, the form and content are marvelously consistent in generating a desirable indeterminacy in order to reflect the complexity of reality and the role of art.	Document: Bai, Niu. The power of myth : a study of Chinese elements in the plays of O'Neill, Albee, Hwang, and Chin. (Ann Arbor : University Microfilms International, 2012). (Diss. Boston Univ., 1995). S. 62-63, 81, 83-84, 86-87, 95-98. (One63, Publication) Person: Albee, Edward

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#	Year	Bibliographical Data	Type / Abbreviation	Linked Data
1	2007-	Worldcat/OCLC	Web / WC