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GETTING ALBEE'S GOAT: 'Notes toward a Definition of Tragedy'
American Drama, Summer 2004 by Kuhn, John
For a moment there's hope that they might "be able to climb out" of the "pit" again, for it seems that beyond understanding or reason or shame is "love." They have not seen Ross enter and stand, watching them kiss "that way" judging them. Martin's "Judas!" is instant and his defense of his son is preemptive and "reckless" {iii; 103}.Kiss "That way? What way? This boy is hurt! I've hurt him, and he still loves me! You fucker! he loves his father." So what if it "clicks over and becomes-what?-sexual" for a moment? "You're sicker than I thought," Ross starts what will be his refrain. "No! I'm hysterical!" responds Martin from the fullness of his humanity, at the edge where tears and laughter meet. Ross would make Billy and his homosexuality another scapegoat to be weighed down with sins and exiled from the human herd. Still sorting it out, the hysterical boy admits to himself, his Dad and Ross that he gets "confused" between "sex and love, loving and ... I probably do want to sleep with him. I want to sleep with everyone," adding "Except you probably." "Jesus! Sick!" and is it "contagious?"[iii; 103-104]. Is it a pestilence? The proverbial plague?
Again Martin interposes himself between his son and 'best friend' as Ross's target, Billy's shield. Moving to console his son who is still concerned about "clicking over," Martin tells a parable [iii; 104-105] about "a man" he knew who got an erection while dandling his infant kid on his lap. "Once he realized the baby in his lap was making him hard-not arousing him; it wasn't sexual, but ... it was happening, he thought he would die . . . he knew it, and then the moment passed, and he knew it had all been an accident" that meant nothing. Martin practically repeats Stevie's next to last line about the breakdown of coherence and causality [ii; 89] as he finishes his story by saying that the man realized " - that nothing was connected with anything else" [iii; 104-105]. More autobiographical than merely empathie, the parable distinguishes voluntary and involuntary physical manifestations of love and sex and incorporates the natural male response to associated friction. While Martin's description of a racing pulse and near fainting is somewhat excessive, Ross's reducing it to "getting hard with a baby" is brutal, irrelevant and his problem [Ui; 105].
After registering another "Jesus! You're sick!" Ross claims that Stevie called him and asked him to come over because Martin needed him. But back to the filthy story, "Is there anything you people don't get off on?" Martin turns the question back, "Is there anything anyone doesn't get off on," whether "we admit," or "know it or not?" he cites St. Sebastian who "probably came" with all those arrows, "God knows the faithful did!" and should he go on "about the cross"? Clearly "getting off on Martin's Passion or tragedy, which the Gray family and the audience have lived through but he hasn't, Ross reaches his crescendo of "Sick; sick; sick." When Martin challenges Ross's judas-like betrayal of his shared confidence by the letter, the argument turns against him [iii; 106]. he could have stopped, "worked it out," he says, and slipping back into despair, "now nothing can ever be put back together! Ever!" Billy tries to shield his father but is thrust aside. Ross forces Martin to confess that his fucking relationship "was sick, and yes, it was compulsive." No, "IS! Not was\ IS!" "All right. Is. Is sick" and "compulsive." Martin balks at admitting it "was wrong" until Ross amends the charge to "deeply, destructive-. Iy wrongl" "Whatever," but "you didn't have to bring it all down," "destroy both of us," "destroy Stevie, too!"[iii; 107]. Having felt how destructive he had been to his son, Martin finally acknowledges the damage done to his wife but tries to blame it on Ross's letter. he never terms the act itself "wrong". Ross refuses to accept any blarne for the wreckage, and he becomes the fourth character to describe Martin's action as "way beyond" the ordinary stuff. One day "Somebody will catch you at it. ... Do you know there are prison terms for ... fucking a goat"?
