Musicality of Edward Albee’s plays (by the example of the play “Three Tall Women”)

Abstract

The paper attempts to show the features of musicality in the creative work of the American playwright Edward Albee involving the material of the play “Three Tall Women”. Albee’s plays are closely related to other forms of art, especially music, and often resemble a score. According to Albee, a dramatic work should correspond to the musical notation in its accuracy. Having musical education and experience in creating études, the playwright learned a lot from music. The play “Three Tall Women” is replete with detailed stage directions with the instructions on how words should be pronounced; the playwright pays special attention to tonality and sound volume, rhythm change, melodiousness. There are a lot of speech repetitions that accelerate the rhythm in the play, while the characters’ tendency to finish each other’s sentences gives the text an impression of fluidity and melodiousness. The aim of the research is to identify the mechanism of creating the musical effect in the play “Three Tall Women”. The paper focuses on the similarity of the playwright’s poetics with music. The scientific novelty of the work lies in an intermediate approach to the study of the play “Three Tall Women”. As a result, the features that allow speaking about the close connection of Albee’s dramatic text with a musical work have been identified in the play under consideration.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: May 20, 2023.
• Published: July 10, 2023.

Keywords

• Э. Олби
• американская драматургия
• музыкальность
• интермедиальность
• театр
• E. Albee
• American drama
• musicality
• intermediality
• theatre

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