Dan's Papers - April 11, 2008 - review: the american dream and the sandbox

As part of Edward Albee's ongoing 80th birthday celebration the playwright has directed two of his early one-act plays, The American Dream and The Sandbox at the venerable Cherry Lane Theatre. These satires of American values, intended as a homage to the French absurdist Eugene Ionesco, were written almost 50 years ago as an assault on middle class values, but remain startlingly fresh and even contemporary today.

As "comic nightmares" on a dysfunctional family, his third and fourth plays arrived on the scene after the explosive success of his first play, The Zoo Story, in 1958. In brief fashion (the first is a little over an hour, while the second is a mere 15 minutes) the playwright plants the seeds for many of his future characters, especially the married couple at the center of his Pulitzer Prize classic A Delicate Balance. But you see echoes of another Pulitzer Prize winner, Three Tall Women, as well as nods to Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This is the voice of an angry young man rebelling against the shallowness of his adoptive parents. Indeed, Albee reminded us on his 80th birthday that when he left home at 18 his adoptive mother told him "You won't make it to 20."

The living room of The American Dream, where the middle aged Mommy (Judith Ivey) and Daddy (George Bartenieff) threaten to send doddering Grandma (Lois Markle) away with "the van man" (Harmon Walsh) is allegorically wallpapered in red, white and blue. In The Sandbox, Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma sit on the beach, while a sculpted hunk (Jesse Williams), the angel of death, patiently does calisthenics as a cellist plays sad music composed specifically for the piece.

Unfortunately, Albee had to replace one of his leading ladies, Myra Carter, who he considered to be brilliant in the role of Mommy, due to illness. Lois Markle, filling in at the last moment, felt too vital, which may be just what the playwright wanted. But quibbles aside (the performances, with the exception of the marvelous Judith Ivey, don't have the needed impact) the plays, as Albee intended them, make a potent comment on a lack of morals. Today, it simply reminds us that we're now off track by an additional 50 years.

Edward Albee has referred to his legendary body of work as "an examination of the American scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of our is peachy-keen."

In what must be considered the twilight of his life Albee continues his attack. Next, his play Occupant, about his artist friend the late Louise Nevelson, begins rehearsals with Mercedes Ruehl for the Signature Theatre. Then it's back to Broadway for the transfer of his new play Me, Myself and I, about identical twins, which opened to rave reviews at Princeton's McCarter Theatre in February.

No complacency here! After that, Albee is off to the Easter Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where he plans to stay for three weeks to craft his latest assault, another new play, Silence, set on the idyllic spot a thousand miles away.

The American Dream and The Sandbox opened on April 1, 2008 at The Cherry Lane Theatre. Tickets are available by calling Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200.

Theater critics Barry Gordin and Patrick Christiano are members of the Drama Desk. Barry is an internationally renowned photographer and Patrick is artistic director of SilvaRoad Productions. Visit their website at www.theaterlife.com