The Theater of the Absurd is a mid-20th century movement characterized by plays with gibberish dialogue, unrealistic storylines, and no intrinsic meaning. Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Arthur Adamov, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Edward Albee, and Jean Tardieu are considered leaders of the movement. The movement began as an experimental theater in Paris and was a reaction to realism in theater. The guiding principle is to look at the world without any presumption of purpose. The plays often explore concepts of conformity and morality in an accessible way.
Theater of the absurd, or absurd, is a term coined by theater critic Martin Esslin to describe a set of particular plays written in the mid-20th century, as well as later plays written in the same tradition. Esslin has pointed to these works as illustrative of a philosophy by Albert Camus, which asserts that life has no intrinsic meaning. Comedies associated with this movement generally share several characteristics, including gibberish dialogue, repetitive or meaningless action, and unrealistic or impossible storylines.
In his 1961 essay, Esslin ranked four playwrights as leaders of the movement: Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Arthur Adamov and Jean Genet. Later, Esslin also included the British playwright Harold Pinter in this group and classified some of the works of Tom Stoppard, Edward Albee and Jean Tardieu as also belonging to the theater of the absurd.
The Theater of the Absurd movement began as an experimental theater in Paris. As a result, even after the form spread to other countries, absurd plays were often written in French. The first major production of a play of the absurd was Jean Genet’s The Maids in 1947. Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano premiered in 1950 and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, probably the best known of all these plays, debuted in January 1953.
Several major theater styles are considered precursors to this movement. Shakespeare’s tragicomedies, such as The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, are considered major influences on absurdist writing, as they often sacrifice realism and logic to achieve a desired ending. Several well-known works reference Shakespeare directly, including Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. A broad comedy style, such as that used in the work of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, is also considered an influence. Surrealist philosopher Antoinin Artaud is also cited, who theorized that the importance of theater was not the literature it produced, but the visceral effect it had on the audience.
Theater of the Absurd is often called a reaction to the movement of realism in the theater. Rather than trying to conform as closely as possible to a real-life concept, absurdists sought to provide an unmistakably unreal experience. In an absurd game, the time and setting are usually ambiguous, if not outright defined. The characters are not meant to mimic real people, but are often metaphorical or archetypal.
The guiding principle of this movement is to look at the world without any presumption of purpose. Esslin suggests that without a fixed belief system or guiding principle, all action becomes futile and absurd; therefore, everything that happens is permissible. In Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, all the inhabitants of a French village are transformed into rhinos except for the protagonist, Berenger. The game ends when Berenger, while deciding that rhinos are much more attractive than humans, decides that he must fight them.
The rhinoceros is a classic example of Theater of the Absurd. While its plot is intentionally ridiculous, the play explores the concepts of conformity and morality. In realistic theatre, a similarly themed play might involve the invasion of Nazis or peer pressure in a high school. The utility of the absurd is that it exists without bias or specificity; while joining the Nazis is a topic that many people have specific views on, being turned into a rhinoceros is an impossible thing to personally experience. Because it is equally foreign to all, it is meant to be accessible to all.
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