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CHEWING THE EXISTENTIAL CUD:

THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRAGEDY IN

*THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS.*

David Johansson..page7

And this blow, this offstage slap – so necessary to the catharsis – is amplified by the sensitive consciousness of the children, who for their ages, occupy more stage time than characters of similar ages than in any modern drama. In Salesman, even the adolescent Biff and Happy make only brief appearances, and are in any case played by adults. Indeed, it is unusual and oddly disquieting to have children onstage so much of the time, since they're not just playing children, they are children. It's like recruiting a real bum to play a wino, only more so. The effect in Dark is a terrifying emotional realism, which set in counterpart to the drama between the parents and it's eventual and happy resolution, provides us with both a catharsis and a healthy – if qualified and careful – good cheer. Because as Reenie states, "It's a horrible feeling to need someone."

What, then, are we to do when we find ourselves trapped in the abyss of solipsism, what novelist Walker Percy called "the suck of self"? Why – discover emotional courage and glandular fortitude! Rubin says, "Sometimes I wonder if it's not a lot easier to pioneer a country than it is to settle down in it." The country he speaks of is love and marriage, which he is ready to tackle, on realistic, pragmatic terms – even the obsolescence of the harness business doesn't faze him, because with the help of his wife Cora…he copes – avoiding the desperate mad mindscapes of memory and disappointment which envelope Willy and Amanda. For Inge, the price of intimacy is humility, and to some extent humiliation – the willing forfeiture of ego in the attempt to play fair.

So back to where I begin. We need to add Inge to the college curriculum – especially as he is allied so closely with Williams and Miller. The three dominated the theatre of the fifties on Broadway, and beyond that they continue to form the shape the culture as both is chroniclers and prophets. These playwrights possess no hidden agendas, only solid metaphors. And to those audiences possessed of those singular American virtues – Southern Honor, Yankee Ingenuity, and Midwestern Perseverance – these playwrights brutally indict the American Dream, shake it, beat it and stand it on its head…while at the same time hinting…shyly, of what that dream might really be.

END*

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