The Sandbox - Essay Example

Refusing to take the traditional path of a child of the upper class, not only did he resent them but viewed the relationships within his family as highly dysfunctional, a theme he would pursue in his early one-act play, The Sandbox. Written in 1959, The Sandbox, press notes state, "introduces one of Americas most dysfunctional families, a grasping, materialistic married couple who stage a perverse seaside idyll destined to end in the demise of the wifes aged mother. In this pioneering work, Albee manipulates clichés of language and social mores, breaking the fourth wall and purposefully destroying the audiences illusion of passive observation of the action of the play (Gans, par. 5). In an in-depth study of the play as a similar study of dysfunctional families, Neela writes of the work that “in many ways (the play) anticipates the dysfunctional families that surface in (Albee’s later works) "The American Dream", "Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

" "and "A Delicate Balance" (Neely, Abstract, par. 1). Dispelling the notion of Albee as a complete curmudgeon regarding family relationships, Bigsby contends that Albee did have a close relationship with his grandmother to whom he dedicated the work (and whose character he included in the play) (Bigsby 1). The playwright is most profoundly critical of the parents—“The hideously overbearing, materialistic and wicked mother, and the weak father (Mommy and Daddy) who long ago resigned his own self to her.

” (Gutman, par. 2). In the play Albee extends the result of their vacuous conventional responses to his beloved grandmother’s death. Thus a major theme of the play is the hypocrisy of some and shallowness and non-concern of others while waiting (patiently and anxiously) for one we supposedly love to die. The play brings out the lack of connection between mother (Grandmother)