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ANIKÓ LUKÁCS
he did not arrive at his findings in relation to Albee’s play, they are indirectly
applicable in support of the above-mentioned relationship. In Brustein’s in¬
terpretation, the primary task of Artaud’s theater is to perform a kind of exor¬
cism of fantasies? or, in Artaud’s words, the effect of the Theater of Cruelty is
“impelling men to see themselves as they are, it causes the mask to fall, reveals
the lie, the slackness, baseness, and hypocrisy of our world.”* The above, how¬
ever, as well as being the core of Artaud’s thoughts, also includes the moral
foundation of Albee’s play. In C. W. E. Bigsby’s study, it is concluded that Albee
believes the most basic task of human existence is to face the truth and to live
with it, as a true relationship with it can only be realized on a pure foundation
deprived of self-deception.’ For Albee, the only sincere response — both for
society and the individual — is open confrontation.® The story of Martha and
George is actually a reflection of this process — in Bigsby’s view, the play is
interpreted as a moral guide for the modern world, a gospel that teaches man
to accept reality® — which means that this is where the objective of the Theater
of Cruelty is most apparent as it is in line with the moral projection of the play:
HONEY (Apologetically, holding up her brandy bottle) I peel labels.
GEORGE We all peel labels, sweetie; and when you get through the skin, all
three layers, through the muscle, slosh aside the organs [...] and get
down to bone... you know what you do then? [...] When you get down
to bone, you haven’t got all the way, yet. There’s something inside
the bone... the marrow... and that’s what you gotta get at.’
As Jerzy Grotowski notes, cruelty should not be understood externally: the
essence of cruelty is that we are not lying. If we do not want to lie, if we do not
lie, we'll be cruel, inevitably.® Albee’s Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? leads its
characters, readers, and viewers to the naked skin that emerges from beneath
the fallen mask, which is to be penetrated, reaching deeper and deeper to
eventually arrive at the point where the fragile “self” is revealed beyond the
cover of illusions.
In addition to the moral responsibility of facing ourselves, this act also has
a practical function, which Artaud calls abscess drainage? — the episode of
Robert Brustein: IX. Antonin Artaud és Jean Genet. A Kegyetlen Színház, in A lázadás szín¬
háza II., trans. László F. Földényi, Debrecen, Európa, 1982, 169.
3 Artaud: The Theater and the Plague, in The Theater and Its Double, Ibid., 31.
4 C. W.E. Bigsby: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee’s Morality Play, Journal of
American Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1967), 257, http://www.jstor.org/.
Bigsby: Ibid., 262.
Ibid., 264.
Edward Albee: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, New York, New American Library, 212-213.
Jerzy Grotowski: Szinhdz és Ritudlé, trans. Andras Pälyi, Budapest, Kalligram, 1999, 61.
Artaud: The Theater and the Plague, in Ibid.
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