theater of the absurd

A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.

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Absurd, Theatre of the. Name given to a group of playwrights, and a type of drama, which constituted the French theatrical avant-garde of the 1950s. Critically imprecise, but ubiquitous and probably indispensable, the term was coined by Martin Esslin in his study of contemporary playwrights, The Theatre of the Absurd (1962). It refers to a group of writers, mainly though not exclusively in France, of whom Beckett, Ionesco, Adamov, and (tenuously) Genet are the main figures. Minor or occasional avatars of absurdist theatre are said to include Arrabal, Pinget, Tardieu, Vauthier, and Vian, the Swiss Max Frisch and German Günter Grass, and the English-language playwrights Albee, Pinter, and N. F. Simpson. Among later playwrights, Dubillard, Obaldia, Weingarten, and Tom Stoppard show absurdist influences. These writers cannot be said to constitute a school or movement, and it is important not to allow a label to obscure the huge differences between them. However, they have all on occasions drawn on a range of anti-naturalist techniques to express man's predicament in an irrational universe. It is this double alliance of content and dramatic style that is referred to by the expression ‘Theatre of the Absurd’.

‘Absurd’ is taken loosely in the sense which it has in Existentialist philosophy. It emphasizes (and generally does not go beyond) the purely negative side of Sartre's Existentialism. More specifically, it is taken in the sense which Camus gave to the word in Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1943), namely, ‘out of harmony’ with the universe. Camus identified the metaphysical anguish stemming from man's presence in a universe which denies any philosophical justification for his being. From this arises an awareness of the futility of human activity.

A sense of the absurd was a prominent feature of French literature immediately before and after World War II, though principally in philosophical writing, including Le Mythe de Sisyphe and L'Être et le néant (1943), and novels such as La Nausée (1938), L'Étranger (1942), and La Peste (1947). Camus's plays La Malentendu (1944) and Caligula (1945), in so far as they express a view of existence as contingent and the world as being devoid of necessary meaning, might be said to anticipate an absurdist theatre. However, these plays, conventional in form, belong more to a traditional theatre of ideas because of their reliance on naturalistic situations and rational discourse. The Theatre of the Absurd, in contrast, does not discuss the human condition but represents it in absurd stage metaphors. For this reason, Jarry's Ubu roi (performed in 1886), Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias, a proto-Surrealist play written between 1903 and 1916, and indeed Surrealist theatre generally are often considered precursors: not in the philosophical sense, but for their use of anti-naturalist techniques such as narrative and psychological inconsistency, neologisms and nonsense language, and concrete stage imagery.

The archetypal plays of the Theatre of the Absurd are those which marked its emergence: Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve (written 1948, produced 1950), Beckett's En attendant Godot (written 1947-9, produced 1953), and Adamov's La Parodie (his third play, produced 1952). These plays express significantly different world-views. Beckett emphasizes the meaninglessness of existence. Ionesco highlights non-communication and the uncomfortable contingency of the material world. Adamov communicates a tormented sense of multilation and separation. Collectively, however, they exhibit the characteristic features of a type of theatre modelled on the absurd as a structural principle. The settings and characters are ahistorical, reflecting the metaphysical rather than social preoccupations of this type of drama. The mainstays of the conventional Aristotelian model of drama—plot, characters, and dialogue—are either discarded or subverted. The absence of plot emphasizes the futility and monotony of human existence. Characters lack motivation, and are seen to spend their time either waiting for something to happen (a motif common to all three playwrights) or engaged in meaningless exchanges of words. Cause and effect are dissociated, making events appear arbitrary and unpredictable. Material objects and stage properties appear incongrous. Time is elastic and non-linear. It is not by concidence that the structure of such plays is typically circular (e.g. La Cantatrice chauve) or cyclical (En attendant Godot, La Parodie). The characteristic mood of these plays is tragicomic, inevitably so, because they express a nihilistic view of human existence whilst simultaneously denying man the dignity necessary to achieve genuine tragic stature.

The Theatre of the Absurd, which made Paris the dramatic capital of the world, was the major theatrical phenomenon of the 1950s. It was played out against the backdrop of the Cold War and under the shadow of Hiroshima, a period whose climate is best captured by Beckett in Godot and Fin de partie. By the early 1960s Beckett and Ionesco were established modern classics. Their success encouraged a spate of lesser absurdists, offering not so much a compelling global vision of life as minor variations of a mainly verbal and poetic kind. Beckett, meanwhile, continued to refine and condense his vision, in plays which became increasingly elliptical, culminating with the 30-second drama Breath in 1969. Ionesco's plays, reiterating ever more insistently his personal obsession with death, became increasingly allegorical. Adamov, repudiating his absurdist dramas as early as 1955, had adopted a Brechtian mode of committed theatre.

Absurdism helped to liberate playwrights from outmoded conventions, and gave rise to some powerful theatrical metaphors. Beckett's image of two tramps waiting beside a tree in a barren landscape became a universal icon of futile existence. But its nihilism represented a philosophical impasse. Moreover, it was the last theatrical avant-garde led by writers. After 1960 original dramatic writing fell into decline and directors took the initiative [see Drama In France Since 1789].

[David Whitton]

Bibliography

• M. Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (1962)
• G. Serreau, Histoire du ‘nouveau théâtre’ (1966)

A post-World War II dramatic trend characterized by radical theatrical innovations. In works influenced by the Theater of the absurd, nontraditional, sometimes grotesque characterizations, plots, and stage sets reveal a meaningless universe in which human values are irrelevant. Existentialist themes of estrangement, absurdity, and futility link many of the works of this movement. The principal writers of the Theater of the Absurd are Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter.

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