SOURCE: "Parallels and Proselytes: Edward Albee," in The Theatre of the Absurd, revised edition, Anchor Books, 1969, pp. 226-70.

In the following excerpt from the expanded version of his groundbreaking 1961 work, Esslin discusses Albee's plays and declares The American Dream "Albee's promising and brilliant first example of an American contribution to the Theatre of the Absurd."

The work we have surveyed in this chapter shows that the Theatre of the Absurd has had its impact on writers in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain. The relative absence of dramatists of the Absurd in the United States, however, is puzzling, particularly in view of the fact that certain aspects of American popular art have had a decisive influence on the dramatists of the Absurd in Europe.…

But the reason for this dearth of examples of the Theatre of the Absurd in the United States is probably simple enough...