Theatre of the Absurd

The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post– World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.

Etymology

Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "The Theatre of the Absurd", which begins by focusing on the playwrights Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugène Ionesco. Esslin says that their plays have a common denominator — the "absurd", a word that Esslin defines with a quotation from Ionesco: "absurd is that which has not purpose, or goal, or objective." The French philosopher Albert Camus, in his 1942 essay " Myth of Sisyphus", describes the human situation as meaningless and absurd.

The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man's reaction to a world apparently without meaning, or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. This style of writing was first popularized by the Eugène Ionesco play ''The Bald Soprano'' (1950). Although the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the " well-made play".

In his introduction to the book ''Absurd Drama'' (1965), Esslin wrote:

The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.

Origin

In the first edition of ''The Theatre of the Absurd'', Esslin quotes the French philosopher Albert Camus's essay "Myth of Sisyphus", as it uses the word "absurdity" to describe the human situation: "In a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. … This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity."

Esslin presents the four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth playwright, Harold Pinter.Martin Esslin, ''The Theatre of the Absurd'' (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961). (Subsequent references to this ed. appear within parentheses in the text.)Martin Esslin, ''The Theatre of the Absurd'', 3rd ed. (New York: Vintage nopf 2004). (Subsequent references to this ed. appear within parentheses in the text.) Other writers associated with this group by Esslin and other critics include Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fernando Arrabal, Felicia Hardison Londré, Margot Berthold. ''The history of world theater: from the English restoration to the present''. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999. , . p. 438 Edward Albee, Boris Vian, and Jean Tardieu.

Precursors

Elizabethan – tragicomedy

The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy.Esslin, pp. 323–324 As Nell says in '' Endgame'', "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness … it's the most comical thing in the world". Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence on this aspect of the "Absurd drama". Shakespeare's influence is acknowledged directly in the titles of Ionesco's '' Macbett'' and Stoppard's '' Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead''. Friedrich Dürrenmatt says in his essay "Problems of the Theatre", "Comedy alone is suitable for us … But the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises."

Though layered with a significant amount of tragedy, Theatre of the Absurd echoes other great forms of comedic performance, according to Esslin, from Commedia dell'arte to vaudeville. Similarly, Esslin cites early film comedians and music hall artists such as Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops and Buster Keaton as direct influences. (Keaton even starred in Beckett's '' Film'' in 1965.)

Formal experimentation

As an experimental form of theatre, many Theatre of the Absurd playwrights employ techniques borrowed from earlier innovators. Writers and techniques frequently mentioned in relation to the Theatre of the Absurd include the 19th-century nonsense poets, such as Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear; Polish playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz; the Russians Daniil Kharms, Nikolai Erdman, and others; Bertolt Brecht's distancing

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