CONTENTS

PRELIMINARIES
Drama vs. theatre3
THEATRE AS A SEMIOTIC SYSTEM......4
Typologies of the (theatrical) sign..6
THEATRICAL COMMUNICATION..9
Encoding and decoding: signals, messages, codes, systems...9
TEXT vs. PERFORMANCE12
Text12
Structure....12
Construction of plot...14
Story and plot..15
Plot in time or time in plot..16
The breaking of time/ time limits/ temporal conventions...17
CHARACTERS.18
Types of characters...18
Actor vs. character20
DIALOGUE...21
Stage Directions....22
SPACE25
The meanings of space: proxemic relations..25
Kinetic factors...26

GESTURE AND SPEECH...26

Movement

and

language

as

complementary/mutually

substituting

systems.26
Paralinguistic factors 27
DRAMA SINCE THE 1950s.29
John Osborne...31
THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD...34
Main features of the Theatre of the Absurd.34
Introduction defining concepts...34
The message(s) of the plays..36
The comic of the plays..37
Characters..39
Time and space..40
Language...41
Harold Pinter44
Samuel Beckett....47
BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRELIMINARIES
Drama vs. theatre
In an age in which the written text has reached rich and daring approaches, the text of a
play was bound to experience the same scrutinizing. The theatrical discourse aims at tackling
social problems and at building a text as a living projection of the social realities 1 (but not
necessarily a projection of reality), on the one hand, and at forming a new text that would exploit
its own methods and techniques.
The analysis of the means that the playwright has at his/ her disposal has led to the
observation that the entire process of theatrical communication constitutes a potential area for
semiotic investigation2. If semiotics has been defined as a science dedicated to the study of the
production of meaning in society3, then a semiotic approach to theatre and drama will deal with

the process of signification and

the process of communication.

By analyzing * the different sign-systems and

* codes at work in a society as well as
* the actual messages and texts produced
the decoder observes the ways in which meanings are both generated, transmitted and
exchanged, the whole process giving rise to a new and clearly individually defined discourse
the theatrical discourse. And because there were voices 4 that claimed/ maintained that a reader
cannot catch the real meaning and cannot grasp the true style off a printed page as he cannot see
the three-dimensional unfolding of the text at work, differences have been traced between the
terms theatre and drama. Thus, theatre has been regarded as the complex of phenomena
associated with the performeraudience transaction i.e. with the production and communication
of meaning in the performance itself and with the systems underlying it. 5 On the other hand,
drama is regarded as that mode of fiction designed for stage representation and constructed
according to certain (dramatic) conventions.6

Shepherd, Simon; Wallis, Mick (2004): Drama/ Theatre/ Performance, Routledge, p. 1.

Elam, Keir (1980): The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, Methuen, p. 2.
3
Ibidem, p. 1.
4
Shepherd, Simon; Wallis, Mick (2004):op. cit., p. 10.
5
Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p.2.
6
Ibidem.
2

Analyzing the adjectives derived from the two terms, theatrical has been considered to
refer to what takes place between performers and spectators while dramatic refers to the
network of factors relating to the represented fiction.7 Hence, we are dealing with two types of
textual material:

one produced in the theatre (the theatrical/ performance text) and

one composed for the theatre (the written/ dramatic text).

Other approaches8 have distinguished between not two but four layers or circles, four

concentric overlapping circles, out of which

drama is the smallest, at the centre, standing for the writers text;

script represents the basic code of the event, the interior map or book of the production;

theatre is the event enacted by a specific group of actors comprising the specific set of
gestures and movements performed by the actors; the manifestation or representation of
the drama and/ or script;

performance is the broadest circle comprising the whole constellation of events that take
place between both performers and audience from the time the first spectator enters the
field of the performance to the time the last spectator leaves.

THEATRE AS A SEMIOTIC SYSTEM

These broad perspectives upon theatre and drama have led to the idea that a semiotics of
the theatre and drama has to include problems of discourse, speech acts, theory of possible
worlds, socio-semiotics. Thus, the decoder has to consider the text and the performance; the
organization of the text or the show as a whole; the organization of the semiotic systems that
make up both text and performance; the dynamics of the processes of meaning and their
communication through the participation of both performers and audience. 9 Thus, two major
aspects which foreground two major characteristics of the semiotics of theatre:
1. its main concern with the mode of meaning production;

Ibidem.
Schechner, Richard, Drama, Script, Theatre and Performance in The Drama Review, vol. 17 (T-59), 1973, p. 7,
apud Caufman-Blumenfeld, Odette (1990): Perspectives in the Poetics and Semiotics of the Theatre, Al. I. Cuza
University Press, pp. 1314: The drama is the domain of the author, the composer, scenarist, shaman; the script is
the domain of the teacher, guru, master; the theatre is the domain of the performers; the performance is the domain
of the audience (quotation apud Shepherd, Simon; Wallis, Mick, op. cit., p. 154.
9
Pavis, Patrice (1980): Dictionnaire du thter, Edition Sociales, Paris, p. 358, apud Caufman-Blumenfeld, Odette,
op. cit., pp. 1516.
8

2. the development of a synchretic system in which many languages of expression are put
into action: space, gesture, music, etc.
The foundations of a semiotic approach to theatre and drama can be traced in the
preoccupations of the Prague School. It is in 1931 that two studies were published in
Czechoslovakia (Otakar Zichs Aesthetics of the Art of Drama and Jan Mukaovsks An
Attempted Structural Analysis of the Phenomenon of the Actor) that broadened the perspective
upon drama and theatre taking it to observations concerning the heterogeneous but
interdependent systems of the entire dramatic representation (not granting authority either to the
written text or to the acted text) or concerning the classification of the repertory of the gestural
signs and their functions.
The Prague structuralism developed under the joined influence of the Russian formalist
poetics, on the one hand, and the Saussurian structural linguistics on the other hand. It is from
Saussure that it inherited
1. a definition of the sign as a two-faced entity linking

a material vehicle or signifier with

a mental concept or signified

2. as well as the project for analyzing all of mans signifying and communicative
behaviour within the framework of a general semiotics.
Mukaovsk10 identified the work of art (the theatrical performance in its entirety) as the
semiotic unit whose signifier or sign vehicle is the work itself as an ensemble of material
elements, and whose signified is the aesthetic object residing in the collective unconsciousness
of the public. The performance text becomes a macro-sign whose meaning is constituted by its
total effect. Thus, we observe that all contributory elements are subordinated to a unified textual
whole for which the audience becomes the ultimate maker of meanings. At the same time this
whole has to be broken down into smaller units in the attempt of viewing the network of semiotic
units belonging to different cooperative systems, a real informational polyphony 11, a density
of signs12.
This is how semioticians have reached the conclusion that stage radically transforms all
objects and bodies defined within it, giving them a signifying power which they lack in their
normal social function. Starting from Greimass general definition of the sign as something
10

Apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 7.

Barthes, Roland, Littrature et signification, in Essais critiques, Seuil, Paris, 1964, p. 258, apud CaufmanBlumenfeld, Odette, op. cit., p. 17.
12
Ibidem.
11

which is there to represent something else13, the perspective was enlarged to viewing theatre as
a system of signs which sends us to the real by signaling it. 14 The general conclusion has been
that in a theatrical performance we assist a process of semiotization of the object because all that
is on the stage is a sign15, or everything is a sign in a theatrical presentation 16. We assist a shift
from the emphasis being laid on the utilitarian/ practical function of the object in real life to an
emphasis being laid on the signification of the object on stage.
It is obvious at the same time that, beyond the basic denotation that these objects hold,
the theatrical sign vehicle (signifier) bears secondary meanings for the audience depending on
the social, moral and ideological values operating in the community of which the performers and
audience are part. The sign acquires thus, a polysemic character i. e. a given vehicle may bear not
one, but a multiplicity of meanings which sometimes may be decoded and understood and other
times they can evade the understanding of the audience for they do not fall under the sphere of
their cultural, social code (a costume, for example, may suggest socio-economic, psychological
and even moral characteristics but can we, as 21st century members of the audience, fully
understand the symbolism of Hamlets clothes?). The theatrical performance can thus be
regarded as a text formed of a network of signs with high generative power of meaning(s)
resulting from their mobility, dynamism or transformability. These features function at a
linguistic level as well (not only material as it has been discussed above) and sometimes we
assist an alienation of the signifier from its meaning-function and an increase of its opacity
reaching what has been very much exploited in the literature of the absurd. In such situation the
listener is forced to take note of the utterance itself rather than the meaning.

Typologies of the (theatrical) sign

I.

Attempts of categorizing the theatrical sign were performed in very early stages of the

exploitation of this new territory. Starting from Saussures definition of the linguistic sign, the
perspectives have been enlarged, and thus, theorists have concluded that in a performance, the
spectator identifies some of the most important signifiers but it is only later that they are

13

Greimas, A. J.; Courts, J. (1979): Signe in Smiotique dictionnaire raisonn de la thorie de langage, Hachette,
apud Caufman-Blumenfeld, Odette, op. cit., p. 17.
14
Pavis, Patrice (1976): Problmes de smiologie thtrale, Les Presses de LUniversit du Quebec, p. 8, apud
Caufman-Blumenfeld, Odette, op. cit., p. 17.
15
Veltrusk, Jii (1940): Man and Object in the Theatre, apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 7.
16
Kowzan, Tadeusz (1968): The Sign in the Theatre in Diogenes, no. 61, pp. 5288, apud Caufman-Blumenfeld,
Odette, op. cit., p. 17.

associated to some signifieds. Usually to a signified can correspond several signifiers belonging
to different systems (setting, gestures, language, etc.)
The theatrical signifiers have been classified into:
a. visual (perceived in the mise en scne);
b. auditory or textual (communicated through the auditory channel)
In a similar undertaking, Roland Barthes17 inferred that the nature of the theatrical sign,

II.

whether analogical, symbolic or conventional, the denotation and connotation of the message
all these fundamental problems of semiology are present in the theatre. However, it was not
Barthes but the Polish semiotician Tadeusz Kowzan than managed to draw an initial typology of
the theatrical signs and sign-systems, i. e. to classify as well as describe the phenomena.
The distinction that Kowzan draws, depending on the presence or absence of
motivation is that between:

natural signs determined by strictly physical laws meaning that the signifier and
signified are bound in a direct cause-and-effect relationship (e. g. symptoms indicate a
disease; smoke signifies a fire)

artificial signs depend upon the intervention of human volition.

Kowzan also tried to establish another typology of the theatrical sign and sign systems,

reaching 13 groups:

a. auditory language, tone, music, sound effects (including noises off);

b. visual facial mime, gesture, movement, make-up, hairstyle, costume,
props, dcor, lighting.

To see the way in which these types of signs can function here is a chart 18 showing the way in
which one signifier (be it visual or auditory) can denotatively lead to a signified, and, at the same
time bear a distinct connotation:
SETTING

SIGNIFIERS
SIGNIFIEDS
two-storey corner building an old house
weathered, stairs and galleries

CONNOTATION
poverty, a glamorous past
joyful hopeful atmosphere

LIGHTING
MUSIC
NOISE

17
18

the blue turquoise sea

dark of an early evening
blues

a serene day
the action takes place
in the evening
barroom atmosphere

voices of people

animated street

end of day; death of day;

beginning of another life
an old tradition; a means of
survival
busy life; gay people

Barthes, Roland, op cit., p. 262, apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p.19.
Apud Caufman-Blumenfeld, Odette, op. cit., p. 31.

COSTUME
MOVEMENT

III.

a character bellowing
a character roughly dressed in
blue denim
uncertainty in walking

impatience
the profession of a
worker
hesitation, fragility

coarseness
primitive strong
man
an easy prey

instinctual

Another typical classification of the theatrical sign is derived from C. S. Peirces tripartite

typology of the sign19:

-

the icon whose principle of functioning is that of similitude; the icon represents
its object mainly by similarity between the sign-vehicle and its signified (e. g. of
iconic signs are the figurative painting and the photograph);

the index indexical signs are causally connected with their objects; the natural
signs mentioned previously are indices; indices also have the function of showing:
a knock on the door points to the presence of someone; verbal deixis/ deictics
(regarded as the most significant linguistic feature of drama) (personal and
demonstrative pronouns such as I, you, this, that, and adverbs such as
here and now) is also included in this category;

the symbol the relationship between sign-vehicle and signified is conventional

and unmotivated.

Pierce indicates that there can never be such a thing as a pure icon, index, or symbol.
Theatre seems to be the territory of the icon: see the principle of similitude at work in the case of
the voice and the body of the actor as icons. This analogousness between the representational
bodies and the represented human bodies can even be absolute when the actors on stage play
their own role/ life. But these mathematical situations are rather few, and the spectator has
always to pass beyond the mere icon:
* what happens, for example, with the interpretation of the absolutely pure icon in an
Elizabethan context when boy/ male actors represented women, or aged actors still played the
roles of young lovers;
* or what happens when the spectator realizes that a costume may denote iconically the mode of
dress of the dramatic figure but at the same time it may stand indexically for a social position or
profession;
* another example of the way in which the icon bears deeper meanings than there is expressed in
its allegedly pure function is the way in which an actor moves: iconically (s)he just walks,
treads, tramps, strolls, but his/ her movement will simultaneously show a certain frame of mind;
19

Apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 21.

* both gesture and lighting can surpass their iconic function and perform an indexical function.

THEATRICAL COMMUNICATION
Encoding and decoding: signals, messages, codes, systems
Starting from the basic scheme of communication in which the sender and the receiver,
by means of a mutually shared and accepted code, exchange signals/ messages and switch places,
becoming in turn sender and receiver, semioticians have applied the same analysis in theatre as
well.
In 1969, the French linguist Georges Mounin inferred that the relationship performer
spectator does not follow the same pattern. Starting from the fact that the two do not share the
same code (i. e. the French language), Mounin holds that the information-giving process is
unidirectional and the participants roles fixed: the sender-actors remain always such, as do the
receiver-spectators.20 In this stimulusresponse model, the senders one-way signals provoke a
number of more or less automatic reflexes in the receiver, but these reflexes do not communicate,
in turn, along the same axis. However, this cannot be said to be happening in contemporary
theatre or in the theatre of the absurd where the spectator can be said to initiate or at least
continue the communicative circuit, the audiences signals being an essential contribution to the
forming/ encoding and reception/ decoding/ understanding of the performance-text.
A communication process can be described, starting from Ecos elementary model of
communication21 (see the graph on the next page 22), in general terms, as the transmission of a
signal from a source to a destination along a channel. The channel might be under the influence
of some kind of noise and before reaching the destination point the receiver pick up the signal
and transforms it into a coherent, comprehensible message. At the same time, it is obvious that it
is not possible to talk of a single theatrical message: the performance is, rather, made up of
multiple messages in which several channels, or several modes of using a channel
in communication, are used simultaneously in an aesthetic or perceptual
synthesis23.
20

Mounin, Georges (1969): Introduction la smiologie, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, p. 92, apud Elam, Keir
(1980): op. cit., p. 33.
21
Eco, Umberto (1982): Tratat de semiotic general, Editura tiinific i enciclopedic, Bucureti, p. 47.
22
Apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 36.
23
Moles, Abraham (1958): Information Theory and Aesthetic Perception, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 171,
apud Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 38.

These messages, included in what the receiverspectator will see as an integrated text, will be
interpreted according to different codes: cultural, theatrical, dramatic, ideological, etc. At the
same time, the spectators become transmitters in turn, and emit to the performers such signals as
applause, laughter, boos, etc. expressing their approval, sympathy, shock, hostility and so on.
What is important to bear in mind when referring to the actorspectator transaction/
communication, is that it will always take place within the theatrical context mediated by a
dramatic context the text itself. It is in this context that, by means of a code, the spectators will
decode the systems that the performers use.
A system will be understood as a repertory of signs or signals and the internal syntactic
rules governing their selection and combination24 as a formal network of elements having a
differential structure (that is, they are defined through mutual opposition, e.g. the colour of traffic
lights).
A code is what allows a unit from the semantic system (a signified) to be attached to a
unit from the syntactic system, or in other words an ensemble of correlational rules governing
the formation of sign-relationships.25 Examples of codes may include such simple associations
as in the case of traffic lights (red danger; green clearance of crossing) or more complex rules
as in the case of linguistic codes (including such rules as dialectal, paralinguistic, rhetorical,
pragmatic, contextual). The theatrical performance will engage virtually all the codes operating
in society (kinesic, scenic, linguistic).
source
an
idea/
impulse in the
mind of the
speaker
an actual event
(see journalistic
communication
)
a state of affairs
to
be
communicated
(e.g.
dangerously
high levels of
water)
the dramatist/
the
dramatic
text
the director

transmitter

the
speakers
voice

signal

channel

an electric
wire

signal

an
electric lamp

graphic
signs

light
waves

a computer

an electric
impulse

sound
waves

a typewriter

movement
s

olfaction

sounds

tactile
channel

telex

phonemes

receiver

an
amplifier

message

speech

movement
s

the eye

gesture

smells

the ear

music

sounds

destination

scenic
continuum

machine
24
25

Elam, Keir (1980): op. cit., p. 49.

Ibidem, p. 50.

10

set designer
lighting
designer
costume
designer

the bodies and

voices of the
actors
the
actors
costumes and
accessories
elements of
the set / props
(electric
lamps,
musical
instruments,
taper
recorders,
film
projectors)

smells

composer
stage manager
technicians
actors

a model of theatrical communication

In what theatrical systems are concerned we have already mentioned in the preliminaries
Tadeusz Kowzans identification of 13 systems operating in a theatrical performance:
a. auditory language, tone, music, sound effects (including noises off);
b. visual facial mime, gesture, movement, make-up, hairstyle, costume, props, dcor, lighting.
To these, there could also be added architectural factors (the form of the playhouse and
stage) or technical options such as film and back projection. In decoding all of these systems the
spectators will activate their theatrical competence and will make use of the theatrical and
dramatic codes and of their own cultural, ideological or ethical codes which form their general
understanding of the world.
Two other aspects worth mentioning when the process of codingdecoding is brought
under analysis are those of overcoding and undercoding26:
1. overcoding it implies the formation of a secondary rule or set of rules on the basis of one
(constitutive) rule or set of rules. Examples of dramatic subcodes produced by overcoding are:
- dramatic subcodes: the aside, the informative monologue, the marriage at the climax of
romantic comedy;
- theatrical subcodes: the rising and falling of a curtain to mark temporal boundaries of a
performance, the use of distinctive kinds of exaggerated movement, make-up or voice projection.
2. undercoding the process whereby barely recognized new rules emerge. It is present
whenever we are confronted with a new dramatic or theatrical experience that we are not able to
26

Eco, Umberto (1982): op. cit., pp. 181185.

11

describe according to certain familiar rules. For example, in the theatre of the absurd, the
audience may be aware of emerging patterns but they are not able to identify and formulate them.
It is for this reason that interpreters resort to such terms as bizarre, experimental, avantgarde, disconnected. This is how, in the 50s, Ionescos, Becketts, or Pinters plays were
labelled for their works brought a breaking of the pre-established dramatic rules.
To conclude, we can say that research into these codified, overcoded and undercoded
norms will always offer rich, complex as well as controversial significances.

TEXT vs. PERFORMANCE

Text
Structure
Starting from the structuralist approach or no necessary from this theoretical approach but
from a general approach on any literary text, the dramatic text, as any other text, has been
regarded from the perspective of the structure it bears. While the novel is divided by means of
chapters, drama is divided into acts and/or scenes which signal the beginning and end of a unit
of action in relation to the whole.27 This conventional division is linked to the evolution of the
generic form within the dramatic canon and it may carry various functions both for the
playwright and for reader.
A cursory look back into the history of drama allows us to see that the shape into which
the idea is poured depends on the type of theatre the writer has in view Renaissance drama is
written in a five-act structure, reflecting a revival of interest in Greek and Roman drama,
reminding us of Horaces advice to dramatists: If you want your play to be called for and given
a second performance, it should not be either shorter or longer than five acts.28
Traditionally, critics described the elements of plot in a play using the metaphor of the
pyramid. It is the case of the German critic Gustav Freytag, in Die Technik des Dramas (1862)29,
who analysed the structure of a typical five-act play as follows:
1. introduction;
2. inciting moment;
27

Aston, Elaine; Savona, George (1994): Theatre as Sign System. A Semiotics of Text and Performance, Routledge,
London and New York, p. 16.
28
Horace (1965): On the Art of Poetry in Aristotle Horace Longinus, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp. 7995, apud
Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 16.
29
apud Cuddon, J. A. (1998): The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, fourth edition, p. 335,
s. v. Freytags pyramid.

12

3. rising action that part of a play which precedes the climax.

4. climax;
5. falling action/ resolution the part of a play which follows the dnouement or climax
forming the outcome.
6. catastrophe the tragic dnouement of a play or story; e. g. the Moors murder of
Desdemona and his own suicide at the climax of Shakespeares Othello.
Another division of the structure of a play may be30:
(a) protasis (Greek stretching forward) the opening section of a play (or
narrative poem) in which the characters are introduced and the situation
explained. It precedes the epitasis.
(b) epitasis (Greek near intensification) the part of a play developing the main
action when the dnouement or climax approaches, when the plot thickens. It
leads to the catastrophe.
(c) catastasis the dramatic complication that immediately precedes the climax of
a play or that occurs during the climax of a play.
(d) catastrophe the tragic dnouement of a play or story.
Contemporary theatre, however, respects almost no conventions concerning structure.
The five acts are usually replaced with three or even two (Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot)
and the evolution of the plot does not lead the reader/ spectator towards experiencing a climax
and then moving towards a discovering a denouement and finding a resolution. Contemporary
plays tend to be timeless in plot, thus presenting only one perspective upon the characters lives
which does not have to move necessarily towards finding a conclusion.
The importance of perceiving the division of a dramatic text into scenes and acts beyond
the mere conventional act resides in the fact that a specific block of text presented as an act is
offered both as a self-contained unit and as a link in the structural chain. 31 Each time we
experience a moment of closure with the end of an act, we also experience a passage towards a
subsequent unit, and we include all these perceptions into a wider view of the dramatic frame.
This is most evident in the written text, because in the performance, the spectator may not be
aware of the passage towards another stage or scene everything being a continuum, perhaps
sometimes, at the best, marked by the rising or lowering of the curtain or by a lighting cue.
In what the number of acts is concerned, from the traditional five-act play modern play
have also experienced with three-act plays or even two-act plays. The number of the acts may
30
31

idem, at the entries of each of the terms presented in the classification.

Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 17.

13

sometimes rightfully give us the right to interpret the evolution of the characters, but other times
it may not transmit such a message at all. A three-act play may seem to give us the right to
interpret the play as presenting an initial conflicting moment, which experiences a moment of
crisis in the mid part, only to find a solution in a new perspective or through a coming back to
the initial state in the last act. A two-act play may seem to lead us towards the judgment that
the second act will bring a revearsal of plans, giving us the possibility to view the characters in a
whole new light or in a new stage of their evolution. But this does not happen, for instance, in
Becketts Waiting for Godot in which act 2 does not change anything in the state of confusion
both of the characters and of the audience. Even if the action in act 2 happens the next day, the
latter half of the play seems to be at times a frozen frame of the former half as long as everything
takes place at Same time. and the Same place.
In what the aspect of establishing the borders of time through structure is concerned, the
action may progress in subsequent acts from one evening to a few seconds later (see Harolds
Pinters The Caretaker) or to a few minutes later, the following evening , two weeks later or
several months later (see John Osbornes Look Back in Anger).

Construction of plot
It has been agreed that the convention of the act and scene division can be linked to the
characteristic features of the dramatic plot in a close dependence between the unity of the act
and the segmentation of the dramatic conflict.32 Traditionally, the conventions of act and scene
division work in direct association with the construction of the dramatic plot contributing to the
shaping or the signposting of the unified beginning, middle and ending point of drama.
In what the construction of the plot is concerned classical analyses 33 have identified a
model based on

exposition;

conflict;

catastrophe.

Other investigations34 have made a connection between the construction of a dramatic

plot and the Dionysiac ritual:
32

Veltrusk, J. (1977): Drama as Literature in Semiotics of Literature 2, PJR Press, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G.,
op. cit., pp. 1718.
33
Bradley, A. C. (1961): The Director and the Stage, Methuen, London, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., pp. 18
19.
34
Cf. Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., pp. 19.

14

(1) Agon or contest (a conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist);
(2) Pathos or disaster;
(3) Messenger;
(4) Lamentation and possible rejoicing;
(5) Discovery or recognition;
(6) Epiphany or resurrection.
All of these function more or less evidently in contemporary drama. Sometimes a whole
play may actually lay an emphasis not on presenting this whole carefully built structure but it
may insist on only half of them, or even on one. The theatre of the absurd does not offer the
reader/ spectator the possibility to identify this hierarchy in the evolution of the character as it
insists on presenting just one episode, exploiting not the shaping of the character but his/ her
peculiarities of behaviour, thought or speech in a particular circumstance.
Stephen Stanton35 identified the following seven features of a well-made play in what its
constituent parts are concerned:
-

plot;

pattern action and suspense;

ups and downs of the heros fortunes;

counterpunch (/counterblow) of peripeteia (= a sudden turn of events or an unexpected

reversal) and scne faire;

central misunderstanding known to the spectators but not known to the characters;

logical denouement;

overall pattern of action.

However, there is no universal recipe for a play and playwrights have taken all of these

features and have poured them into new patterns, forcing critics to come with new theories and
classifications that would support the practice.

Story and plot

Story is the basic narrative outline and plot comprises the means by which narrative
events are structured, organized and presented 36. The modern dramatic text will always have a
plot, but readers feel sometimes at a loss in finding a story of the play. The narrative outline with

35

Stanton, S. S. (1957): Camille and Other Plays, Hill & Wang, New York, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., pp.
1920.
36
Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 21.

15

all its stages is sometimes replaced by the presentation of a single episode, one moment from the
characters lives not necessarily aiming at showing an evolution of the character.

Plot in time or time in plot

In what time is concerned in the making of a play, it has been observed that it plays an
important role and that it has close relations to the structuring of openings, developments and
closures. Time in each of these stages outlines a context, draws a frame that will help the
understanding of the whole plot.
Traditionally, the opening scene supplies information about the setting, it introduces the
characters and establishes the beginning of the action, but in what the story is concerned, it does
not necessarily start at the beginning. The debut of the play might find the characters in the
middle of the conflict and there might be turning backs so as to explain the beginning of the
conflict, to trace its causes or provide a context for the better understanding of the characters,
their actions and the general context of the age. All these might be revealed gradually and/ or
partially creating a new chronology of drama, or of the dramatic emotions. It is precisely this
non-linearity that allows drama to generate tension, suspense and increase the interest in the best
moment possible.
Aston and Savona37 identify the following functions of time in a play:
1. time present the location of the spectator in the here and now of a fictional universe
which unfolds in the play.
2. chronological time the linear time sequence of the story (events as they occur in the
narrative order).
3. plot time the structuring or ordering of events from the chronological time in order to
shape the here and now.
4. performance time the finite period of time which the spectator perceives as the frame
for the unfolding of events.
Other critics38 also introduce a fifth dimension that of the historical time, i.e. the
historical time of the real world as experienced by the spectators in relation to the dramatic
world.
During a performance, the spectators awareness of these temporal planes in relation to
the dramatic action may be arisen by the employment of techniques of stages such as: a passage
37
38

Aston, E.; Savona, G, op. cit., pp. 2728.

Elam, Keir (1980): The Semiotics of the Theatre and Drama, Methuen, London, pp. 117118.

16

of music, the ticking of a clock, the lowering and rising of the lights. The structuring of the
dramatic action under these temporal frames seems to lead the reader/ spectator towards the
sense of an ending, but the ending of a play may not coincide with the ending of the narrative
line. Sometimes the ending seems just to be an opening towards a future, be it immediate or
distant, taking the suspense or the tension of what could be happening further than the last words
of the play.

The breaking of time/ time limits/ temporal conventions

Contemporary drama has brought important changes in what the handling of time(s) is
concerned. Very often plays deviate from the traditional shaping of the dramatic plot, mixing
chronology, or having no chronology whatsoever, that is relating a series of episodes with no
apparent connection or which seem to happen in an indefinable frame of time. Becketts
Endgame has no ending as such but it seems to wind down to no logical purpose. The second
act from Waiting for Godot takes place on the Next day. Same time. Same place as if defying
the normal passing of time, as if everything may be stuck in a universal time beyond any
evolution.

CHARACTERS
17

Types of characters
More or less exhibitionist, more or less extravagant, discarding more or few conventions,
the dramatic text could never discard or evade one presence that of the human being. It is
universally accepted that the presence of man could not be separated from the developing of the
dramatic text human concerns constitute the subject-matter of the dramatic text, the theatrical
performance is carried out by human agents, so one could say that human beings are both the
content and the form of the theatre.39 A. Strindberg observes the shift towards a psychological
interest over the characters and underlines the fact that they are built as products of the times
they inhabit:
My souls (or characters) are agglomerations of past and present culture, scraps
from books and newspapers, fragments of humanity, torn shreds of once-fine
clothing that has become rags, in just the way that a human soul is patched
together.40
This construct under whose form a character is (re)presented has been also been judged
according to the function it plays or the sphere of action to which they belong. Propp identified
seven spheres of actions as follows41:
1. villain
2. donor (provider)
3. helper
4. princess (a sought-for person) and her father
5. dispatcher
6. hero
7. false hero
Working on the model set by Propp, Greimas 42 proposed 6 functions of the characters as
follows:
Sender

Subject

Receiver

39

Wilson, E. (1976): The Theater Experience, McGraw-Hill, New York, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 34.
Strindberg, A. (1976): Preface to Miss Julie, translated by Michael Meyer, in Strindberg, Plays, Eyre Methuen,
London, pp. 91103, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G, op. cit., p. 35.
41
Propp, Vladmir (1968): Morphology of the Folktale, University of Texas Press, Austin and London, apud Aston,
E.; Savona, G, op. cit., p. 36.
42
Greimas (1983): Structural Semantics, Translated by D. McDowell, R. Schleifer and A. Velie, University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, p. 199, apud Aston, E.; Savona, G, op. cit., p. 37.
40

18

Helper

Object

Opponent

which can be explained as follows: the sender is a force or being which acts on the subject
thereby initiating the subjects quest for the object in the interests of the receiver, to which end
the subject is either helped or opposed. If we take the example of a love-quest, the subject
(hero) seeks the object (heroine) under the influence of Eros; typically he is helped by confidants
or servant-type figures and opposed by parental groupings. In this situation the subject is also the
receiver i.e. motivated by love he acts in his own interests.
Another issue which has been raised in what the existence and interpretation of characters
is concerned is that of the world which they represent which will have to follow, more or less, the
logical and physical laws, i.e. there has to be a marked degree of correspondence between a
dramatic world and the characters that inhabit it, and the world of the spectator 43. Of course we
have to take into consideration that they are relocated within a fictional context and perhaps they
will preserve in the world of drama only the culturally determined essential properties44.
In what the manner of transmitting the information about characters is concerned, there
have been identified the following narrative conventions45:
1. self-presentation a character may introduce himself/ herself from the start of the play.
2. exposition all the information about time, events and characters is furnished at the
beginning.
3. choric commentary the information necessary to the spectators understanding
concerning the developing action is provided by a character or characters within or
outside the framework of the narrative, or by a formal chorus with a collective identity.
4. character as confidant(e) the major character confides in a minor character thus
revealing himself/ herself.
5. character as foil a minor character puts into light the major character by acting as a
similar or different counterpoint.
6. Deus ex machina (God form the machine) the issues are raised throughout the play
only to be solved at the end.
7. silent characters the information is given exclusively in visual terms.
8. character names.

43

Keir, Elam, op. cit., p. 104.

Idem, p. 106.
45
Aston, E.; Savona, G, op. cit., p. 44.
44

19

Actor vs. character

Within the theatrical context, the actor represents the agent through which the character is
mediated to the spectator. Even if there are other important factors which contribute to this
mediation (cultural, historical) it is nonetheless important and undeniable that the actor
constitutes the primary channel through which the character is transmitted/ communicated/ given
life to. The actor plays a character that functions
(1) as a psychological construct
(2) as a thematic symbol and/ or ideological key
(3) as a mirror-image of the individual spectator.
These categories are mutually exclusive, they can just as well function simultaneously.
Another aspect concerning the performance of the actor is that he might be faced with the
probability of role-play at the level of character. Making use of the metaphor of the world as a
theatre stage, playwrights have created roles for actors as actors within the play. Three variants
have been identified46:
1. the actor plays a character that plays a role reflexively, i.e. as a theatricalised extension
of social acting.
2. the actor plays a character that assumes a second identity, by the adoption of disguise or
by some other means.
3. the actor plays a character who participates in a formal, second-level enactment (a playwithin-a-play).
In contemporary drama the issue which seems to be more exploited in what the characters are
concerned seems to be that of presenting a character drawn from reality with his/ her common
daily socially rooted tensions, or, as in the theatre of the absurd, what seems to prevail in the
presentation of the character is one psychological feature. The absurdity comes form the fact that
this feature is the only one that the character seems to manifest in the play, creating thus obsessed
characters who seem not to move towards the finding of a solution.

Dialogue

46

Ibidem, pp. 4748.

20

It is clear that dialogue is important in the analysis of the dramatic discourse as a whole
not only from the point of view of language, but also for the fact that it helps understanding the
characters who will be judged as products of the language they use.
Before starting to analyse dialogue or to build a semiotics of dialogue we need to
distinguish between two components which form the unitary body of the dramatic text:
-

the dialogue the main body of the dramatic text;

the stage directions a separate text existing on its own.

The role of the dialogue in dramatic texts is that of establishing the character, space and
action. It is represented as a turn-taking system in which one character listens and then replies
becoming, in turn, speaker. Its mode is essentially deictic. Keir Elam47states that
What allows the dialogue to create an interpersonal dialectic [] within the time
and location of discourse is deixis.
Instead of prepositions or descriptions we have references by the speakers to themselves as
speakers (I), to their interlocutors as listener-addressees (you) and to the spatio-temporal
coordinates (here, now), sometimes pointing to an object or a fact (this, that). The situation can
be summarised in Elams words in: an I addressing a you here and now48 to which we could
add that these two speak about a this or a that.
Dialogue also has to be analysed according to the three levels of speech as action49:
-

locutionary uttering a sentence that makes sense;

illocutionary the act performed in uttering the sentence; e.g. making a request or
promise, issuing a command;

perlocutionary the effect on the addressee through what is said; e.g. the act of
persuading.

The interesting situations of communication appear when the action-response chain is

broken not necessarily because of the lack of a reply, but because of the breaking of logic. This
rule-breaking was more evident in the 20th century when traditional structures between comedy
and tragedy have been set aside and we thus assist a disruption of the traditional functions
characteristic of dramatic speech. This disruption of the linguistic sign-system has appeared
mainly because of the breaking of what Grice50 identified as the conversational maxims:
1. quantity one must supply information as required but without excess;
47

Elam, Keir, op. cit., p. 139.

Ibidem.
49
Aston, E.,; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 53.
50
Grice, H. (1967): Logic and Conversation, in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.): Syntax and Semantics, vol.
3: Speech Acts, Academic Press, New York, San Francisco and London, apud, Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p.
67.
48

21

2. quality one must be truthful, not lie or make an utterance without adequate data;
3. relation one must be relevant;
4. manner the speaker must utter sentences with precision and clarity.
Failures in communication appear mainly because of misfiring speech acts,
misunderstandings, and incoherence51 (see for example Becketts Waiting for Godot which
abuses the cooperative principle).
As a conclusion, we observe that the contemporary dramatic discourse relies almost
exclusively on a mode of rule-breaking. In these dialogues the said is unsaid (In the morning
they brace you and in the evening they calm you down. Unless its the other way round. 52), there
is never any certainty as to meaning, no way of knowing if the characters are sincere or
insincere. The conventions of classical dialogue are subverted, undermined or overturned, only to
form a dramatic, chaotic, absurd universe be it linguistically or logically.

Stage Directions
For a long time stage directions have been regarded as external to the play, not part of the
literary structure. Things have changed greatly and this ancillary text (as they have been
called53 as to differentiate them from the primary text, i.e. the actual dialogue of the characters)
is now subject to interpretation by the director, designer, actors and technicians. They are more or
less respected, more or less understood. Formally, they are italicised, they either precede the
lines, are interspersed or succeed the dialogue. Their importance in the semantic construction has
been acknowledged even if in relation to the dialogue they occupy a subordinate position.
The perspective has changed from viewing them as
mere librettos, mere materials that can be used to construct the work of art54
to regarding them as
literary devices in their own right, exercising a poetic function which warrants
examination.

51

Fowler, R. (1986): Linguistic Criticism, Oxford University press, apud, Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 67.
Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 68.
53
Ingarten, R. (1973): The Literary Work as Art, translated by G. G. Grabowicz, Northwestern University Pres,
Evanston, apud, Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 72.
54
Veltrusk, apud, Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., p. 74.
52

22

Other times the stage directions operate in playful modes which complement the operations of
the dialogue. But the main function of stage directions is that of identifying characters, offering
physical and vocal traits, conventions of delivery, design elements and technical elements55:
I.

Character: identification:

1. identification (description at first entrance)

2. detailed description at or prior to first

entrance
3. occupation

4. dominant traits

5. relationship to others
II.

Character: physical definition:

6. entrance

7. exit

8. manner (throwing off)

9. carriage (stands, staggering)

10. posture (sits hunched up)

11. gesture (with a gesture relief)

12. movement (halts)

13. action: self-directed (puts a hand in his

pocket)

14. action: other-directed (gives her a hug)

15. action: self and object (puts the keys in

his pocket)

16. action: other and object (pushes him back; closes the door)
17. reaction (they giggle)
III.

18. dumb show (performing a dance)

Character: vocabulary definition

19. facial expression (almost crying)

20. mode of delivery (in praise)

21. tone: quality of voice (in a husky voice)

22. tone: emotion (joyfully)

23. pace (he speaks quickly)

24. volume (loudly)

25. rhythm (he repeats; he expresses chanting)

26. mannerism (affectedly genteel voice)

27. emphasis (not that)

28. non-verbal (laughing in contempt)

29. role-within-role (imitating smb. elses voice

IV.

Speech: formal concerns

30. addressee: self (he mutters)

55

31. addressee: other (to Alison)

Aston, E.; Savona, G., op. cit., pp. 8290.

23

32. addressee: audience

33. aside

34. silence/ pause

35. song

V.

Design elements

36. setting: place (back yard)

37. setting: stage picture

38. stage level/ areas (rooms, down left, up right)

39. onstage/ offstage relationships (he is

heard from distance)

40. offstage geography (a flight of steps leading to..)41. time of day

42. time: season

43. time: relative to play overall (a year

later/ earlier)

44. costume (distinctive marks)

45. costume: occasion-specific

46. costume: disguise/ role within a role

47. properties: movable

(in front of a

blackboard)
48. properties: personal (carrying a bunch of keys)
VI.

Technical elements

49. lighting: offstage source (the sun shines from/ through)

50. lighting: onstage source (a candle on the table) 51. lighting: mood (grey light)
52. lighting: effects (window showing moonlight perspective)
53. lighting: time of day (mourning light)

54. lighting: season (the light of autumn)

55. sound: on stage, character-related (makes with the keys a jingling noise)
56. sound: offstage, character-related (she hears a piano playing)
57. sound: offstage, external (the factory siren)

SPACE
The meanings of Space: Proxemic Relations
24

The theatrical text is defined and perceived above all in spatial terms. The stage is in the
first instance an empty space or a place. The analysis will first turn to what the American
anthropologist Edward T. Hall has termed proxemic relations. Proxemics is the science devoted
to spatial codes and Hall distinguishes three types of proxemic space56:
-

the fixed feature the fixed feature type of space refers to the architectural
configurations of the playhouse itself, the shape and dimensions of stage;

the semi-fixed feature involves furniture, the set, the lighting;

the informal feature the informal feature space refers to ever shifting relations of
proximity and distance between individuals i.e. the actoractor interplay, the actor
spectator and the spectatorspectator interplay.

The history of the theatre has been marked by shifts in dominance by one or other of the
3 classes. For example, in the 19th century space was characterised by maximum of grandeur and
fixity resulting in a maximum of formality. Modern and contemporary theatre has tended to
transform architectural fixity into dynamic proxemic informality in order to emphasize personal
rather than social perception and response. In the contemporary theatre, the stage is often divided
into definite zones such as down centre, up centre, down left, up left. For example, down stage
positions have been adopted in order to ensure dominance of a given figure. Characters draw
attention by coming closer and sharing something to the public or by moving away and thus,
drawing the spectators attention towards the retreat.
Distance, particularly performerspectator performance distance, will have a significant
effect on other systems and channels. Thus their movement on the stage will be doubled by an
appropriate use of tone of voice and pitch.
Another important element which helps creating virtual space on stage is lighting. It helps
modify perspectives, create false spaces, foreground a character or, on the contrary, hide one. It
helps to draw attention towards certain objects on the stage highlighting their importance and
potential employment as symbols or, on the contrary concealing them, only to be revealed to the
public in important moments of the play. Lighting also helps defining borders and limits,
establishing territories of the characters in the play, bringing them into the foreground when
addressing another character or directly the audience, or showing a closure in themselves.

Kinetic factors

56

Apud Keir Elam, op. cit., p. 62.

25

Informal space relates directly to the most dynamic aspect of theatrical discourse, which
is the movement of the body on stage.
The kinesic components of performance are: movements, gestures, facial expressions,
postures, etc.
Antonin Artaud dreamt of a pure theatrical language freed from the tyranny of verbal
discourse a language of sings, gestures and attitudes having an ideographic value as they exist
in certain unperverted pantomimes.57
Kinesics is the science studying body motion as a communicative medium. Although
critics have spoken about complex kinemorphic constructions having the properties of the
spoken syntactic sentence, in reality, and with the contemporary theatre particularly, gestures do
not exists as isolated entities. They cannot stand alone. Gestures have a deictic function of
defining the protagonist, the addressee and the context thus setting up a communicative situation.
In theatre
the essential modality (and at the same time the function) of the gesture is its
capacity to sketch out the situation-of-utterance, to become deictic, a sign which
indicates the presence of the stage and of the actor.58

GESTURES AND SPEECH

Movement and language as complementary/ mutually substituting systems
Gesture and speech, as markers of the performers or the space, cooperate in the
production of meaning in the theatrical discourse. The major role of movement and gestures on
stage is to indicate the intentionality of a given utterance. It serves to emphasize the kind of
speech act being performed by the speaker. Movement and gestures become signals that can be
interpreted as illocutionary markers related to the illocutionary force of language. For example,
they can serve to distinguish a serious from an ironical command, to emphasize the intensity of a
demand or the degree of obligation being imposed on the addressee, to render a question as
actual rather than rhetorical, etc.
As J. L. Austin points out in his explanation of the speech acts, we can warn or order or
appoint or give or protest or apologize by non-verbal means and these are illocutionary acts and
they constitute a form of discourse independently of speech. For example, a pointing finger may
57
58

Idem, p. 69.
Pavis, Patrice (1981): Problems of a Semiotic of Gesture in Poetics Today (1981), apud Keir Elam, op. cit., p. 72.

26

be equivalent to the command leave the room, pick up that object, close the door, move
over there, be quiet, be careful.
Another type of markers on stage revealing the nature of the speakergesturer intention
are the attitudinal markers. They indicate not the act intended, but the attitude adopted in
speaking in relation to the world, to the addressee, or to the content of the utterance. Thus, head
nods, finger wags and eyebrow movements may function similarly to the linguistic modality
expressed by means of the modal verbs. So, they can indicate knowledge, belief, permission,
obligation, prohibition, volition, etc. At the same time, meaning in contemporary theatre
particularly is created by means of the contradiction between theatrical gesture and the
simultaneous language utterances, situation which creates a comic effect: Lets go. (They do
not move).
Another aspect concerning the use of speech on the stage is its total lack from the
theatrical discourses. Moments of silence, breaks in the flow of speech, pauses are very
important and they point out towards a certain state of things. Silence in the contemporary
theatre shows either hesitation in answering, or refusal to talk, expectation of receiving an
answer, or, as normally characteristic of the theatre of the absurd, total lack of attention. The
characters pause and do not answer their interlocutor because they are engaged in a separate
sequence of thought which is not connected to the partner of discussion or triggered by one of his
lines.
Silence is meant either to introduce the spectator in a second or secondary dimension of
the main plot or to create a horizon of expectations. The audience is kept alert, he is forced to
make assumptions or to feel more acutely the torments of the character.

Paralinguistic factors
Other factors helping to disambiguate the speech acts in the theatrical text are the
paralinguistic features: pitch, loudness, tempo, timbre, rhythm, inflection/ modulation and nonverbal sounds which are designed to increase the degree of dramatic information indicating
emotional connotations irrespective of the explicit semantic content of the utterance.
George L. Trager59 identified three main classes of vocalic features:
-

voice set (the background vocal characteristics deriving from physiological factors,
gender, age, build, etc.);

59

Trager, George L. (1958): Paralanguage: A First Approximation, in Dell Hymes (ed.) Language in Culture and
Society, New York: Harper and Row, 274288, apud Elam, Keir, op.cit., p. 79.

27

voice qualities (pitch range, lip control, glottis control, rhythm control, articulation
control, tempo, resonance, etc.);

vocalizations (the sounds emitted) which can be, in their turn, divided into:
vocal characterizers (laughing, crying, giggling, shouting, whispering,
moaning, groaning, yawning, etc.);
vocal qualifiers (intensity, pitch height and extent);
vocal segregates (distinct by extra-phonemic sound such as clicks, uhhuh, sh, etc).

All of these elements contribute to facilitating the process of decodification of a dramatic

text and a theatrical discourse. This process of decoding is connected to the spectators
familiarity with other texts and to his ability to infer the common rules of perceiving them. The
spectators knowledge of texts, textual laws and conventions, their general cultural background
make up his horizon of expectations and of interpretation. That is why every spectators
interpretation of the text is, in fact, a new construction of it. He himself makes sense of it in his
own way, starting and ending theatrical communication.

DRAMA SINCE THE 1950s

Drama was often considered as being able to express more clearly and more speedily than
other arts the reality in which we live and to render more authentically the deep patterns and

28

changes registered in this reality. And this because of the large gamut of means of manifestation
on stage:
light and darkness;

voice and pitch;

pauses and silence;

music;

movement and positioning;

posture and gesture;

clothing and costumes;

props;

actoraudience interaction;

or even improvisation on stage, etc.

At the same time, modern times have brought great changes in what the institution of the
theatre is concerned. Apart from this, the physical space has changed and plays began being
played outdoors so we can speak about open stages or theatre-in-the-round 60, thrust stage61,
promenade theatre62, the warehouse theatre63, street theatre64, pub theatre, alley theatre 65,
environmental theatre66, studio theatre67 or it is that the stage that has suffered transformations.
Moreover, the relationship between writer, director, actor and audience has been modified.
Modern drama does not necessarily aim at transmitting a message so as to achieve social reform,
but they simply want to signal one aspect of everyday reality or they want to exploit the new
means of expression (the nonverbal, for example). Contemporary theatre has been characterized
by flexibility of form: fantasy, film clips, music-hall turns, circus elements, find their place in
contemporary plays. What is not said verbally is now as important as what is actually said and
the inarticulate finds new ways such as gestures (mime), the choice of the dcor or the choice of
one evocative scene (see Osbornes kitchen-sink plays 68) or topic (problems of feminism) which
do not necessarily draw on the sources of grand narrative.
Experiment is the new principle of such plays and playwrights such as John Osborne,
Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett created works in which the classical principles of playmaking
(structure, plot development, climax, denouement, character, time, space, language) appeared to
60

Theatre-in-the-round/ arena theatre/ central stage/ island stage theatre stage in which the audience surround the
stage area.
61
Thrust stage/ platform stage/ open stage one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the
backstage area by its up stage end.
62
Promenade theatre type of theatre in which there is no formal stage, both the actors and the audience being
placed in the same space.
63
The Warehouse Theatre a professional producing theatre with one hundred seats in the centre of London
Borough of Croydon, based in an oak-beamed former cement Victorian warehouse, having its first performance in
1977.
64
Street theatre a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific
paying audience. These spaces can include shopping centres, car parks, squares, recreational retreats, street corners.
65
Alley theatre the stage is surrounded on two sides by the audience.
66
Environmental theatre the stage and the audience actually blend together, or are in numerous or oddly shaped
sections.
67
Studio theatre not technically a form of staging, rather a theatre that can be reconfigured to accommodate many
forms of staging.
68
See page 31.

29

be no longer important because they were no longer capable of expressing authentically mans
position within the contemporary cultural, political and social milieu.
The first sign of change was brought about by the loss of order in the contemporary world
fact which led to the appearance of a series of negative attitudes and concepts which created the
context for the appearance of a non-hero who witnesses the disintegration of an absurd world.
Thus, it is the material aspect of everyday obsessive fears, frustrations, illusions, hopes and
happy moments that will form the substance of these plays, in an undertaking that will
sometimes seem trivial and vulgarly plain.

JOHN OSBORNE (19291994) Look Back in Anger

The premiere of Look Back in Anger (8th May 1956, published 1957) marked the
beginning of a new manner of bringing English contemporary life on stage. At only 26 years of
age and after a rapid series of refusals, the play finally was put on stage at Londons Royal Court
Theatre and when, after the performance, the theatres press agent described the author as an
30

angry young man, English drama ceased to be what it had been before and young playwrights
followed the path opened by Osborne.
They would no longer place their characters in countryside houses (the so called drawingroom comedies) and would no longer present their comfortable lives, but they would express
their rage at class distinctions, their scorn at the socio-political order of the country, their dislike
at the phoney that posed as highbrows, their resentment towards the hypocrisy and mediocrity
of the upper classes and they would plead for a coming out of the routine of daily life. Their
attempt to spread their enthusiasm and animation in the world around resulted in plays that seem
to be the outburst of uninhibited thought and language in a dcor that seemed trivially familiar. It
is now that the concept of kitchen-sink drama appears designating drama that depicts family life
in working-class or lower-class families in its genuine, uncensored domestic aspects, sometimes
in its sordid, corrupt appearance. Thus, we view on the stage petty family squalors or we follow
chaps taking their usual morning sip in squalid pubs. The cause of such a change from grand
style to radical, accusatory and mundane presentation of life is to be sought for in the destruction
of moral values in the contemporary society of consumption.
The social rancour led to the emergence of a new type of hero who felt the emptiness of
life, the aimlessness of existence and tried to overcome this sense of purposelessness of the
present by issuing a wake-up call at a new type of life that would make people get involved into
the course of their lives and not let one grand social mechanism chew them as simple amorphous
aggregates. With radical, even anarchic drives, the new type of hero described various forms of
social alienation but stopped at putting everything into flaming rhetoric and not really engaging
actively in a social movement. It is as if his rebellion were more artistic, than activist.
This is the violent discontent which forms the gist of Look Back in Anger, a play which,
though conventional in form (3 acts), introduces an unexpected subject in the age by providing
the voice of a post-war generation disillusioned with the world in which it lives. Jimmy Porter is
made the spokesman of a generation that seems to have lost its valour and desire to make itself
heard. That is why he becomes the voice which wants to pull the others out of their state of
lethargy, idleness and indifference towards the state of the society:
No one can raise themselves out their delicious sloth. [..] Oh heavens, how I long for a little
ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm thats all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry
out Hallelujah! (He bangs his breast theatrically.) Hallelujah! Im alive. Ive an idea. Why dont
we have a little game? Lets pretend that were human beings, and that were actually alive. []
Lets pretend were human. (Act I, p. 15)

Jimmy sees himself as a victim in a world in which he seems to be the only one living, that is the
only one feeling, caring, believing in something while
Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm. (Act I, p. 17)

31

The first victim of his attacks is his own wife. She is the first one who receives this lesson in
feeling, for she is the one, in Jimmys opinion, who is lacking animation more. He calls her
Lady Pusillanimous for she has no determination towards any goal:
Pusillanimous. Adjective. Wanting of firmness of mind, of small courage, having a little mind.
From the Latin pusillus, very little, and animus, the mind. (Slams the book shut.). Thats my wife.
(Act I, p. 22)

His accusations, passion and turbulence do not have as a source just a revolt at the void and
apathy the world was floating on, but they also arise from his frustrations because of Alisons
origins in an upper-middle class military family (while he himself comes from a working-class
background), from the impossibility of using his education and from the limitation to running a
sweet stall. His pressure within the marriage because of the obvious social incompatibility is
evident and it gives rise to one of the wittiest remarks in the play, bringing a winsome description
for the relationship that he had with his mother-in-law and making Jimmy seem a charming
knave:
Mummy and I took one quick look at each other, and, from then on, the age of chivalry was dead.
(Act II, p. 52)

At the same time, their feeling themselves old in this relationship because of the hardships and
frustrations they had felt is suggested by the cramminess of their one-room flat the objects
populating the space are shabby, worn-out and create an atmosphere of entrapment and loss
between the small things of life. But despite his violent revolt Jimmy cannot control anything:
his wifes thoughts, the movements in society, or the passing of time: Our youth is slipping
away. (Act I, p. 15) But he remains a rebel without a cause because of the confused and
undirected nature of his cause, and if he says about the figure of the politician that
The only thing he can do [is] seek sanctuary in his own stupidity. (Act I, p. 20)

his own refuge is in the sanctuary of his verbal (never practical) protest. It is for this reason that
the symbol which the playwright uses for his hero is that of the bear a tattered toy teddy bear
which stands for an expired primitive force and with an uncontrolled, belligerent rhetoric. This
impossibility of him getting out of the current state in which society had thrown him is suggested
even through the circular structure of the play act three finds the same triangle of characters
(now with Helena instead of Alison) engaged in their Sunday evening routine activities. Jimmy
seems not to have surpassed his own condition of outpouring his rhetorical indignation and this
time he has Helena on his side to play along and agree. Yet, Jimmy feels that she is of no real
support as to engage on a mission. He cannot find in her the help to escape from the pain of
being alive (Act III, p. 93) and he feels the same pressure of a life in which routine brings
madness with it:
One of us is crazy. One of us is stupid and mean and crazy. Which is it? Is it me? (Act II, p. 59)

32

One of the strongest points of the play is the handling of time the passing of time is felt
emotionally therefore it seems much more intense. Even if Jimmy constantly complains that time
is slipping from underneath him, it is the revolt or, at times, lamentation of his speech that make
time stop in a universal cry outside or beyond time.
As for the use of space, the reader can observe the passing from a concrete crammed
space of pressure, frustration, disillusion and confusion at the beginning of the play to an abstract
space of togetherness in the end. This idea is supported by the use of pronouns at the beginning
of the play Jimmy distances himself from the other by the constant use of the separative I and
you, while in the end he uses the uniting we; and by the use of the tenses the present tense
used at the beginning of the play shows their entrapment, while the future tense used at the end
introduces a glimpse of hope.
In the end, the hero is almost pitiable as in his last but one line in the play he seems to
notice the futility of all his actions, but who can blame someone for his idealism, be it
exacerbated as Jimmys is:
Was I really wrong to believe that theres a a kind of burning virility of mind and spirit that
looks for something as powerful as itself? The heaviest, strongest creatures in this world seem to
be the loneliest. Like the old bear, following his own breath in the dark forest. Theres no warm
pack, no herd to comfort him. That voice that cries out doesnt have to be a weakling, does it? (Act
III, p. 94)

It is this duality of stubbornness and obedience, toughness and sensibility that makes of Jimmy
one of a kind character and one that manages to render drama even in the most common
incidents of life, even in the most frivolous occurrences. In the end his words seem to belong to
the author in this undertaking of describing his characters potentialities and winning the readers
favours:
Even their trivialities become indispensable to you. Indispensable, and a little mysterious. (Act I,
p. 33)

THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

MAIN FEATURES
Motto:
The theatre should aim at expressing
what language is incapable of putting into words.
(Martin Esslin The Theatre of the Absurd, p. 374)

I.

Introduction defining concepts

33

In the contemporary world in which mans action could no longer be explained on the
basis of some universal systems of beliefs, in which the previous firmly-fixed philosophical
principles of life lost their value, man started looking for a different means of expressing his
feeling of loss, purposelessness, disillusion and bewilderment at the mysterious, indecipherable
world that surrounds him. It was the Theatre of the Absurd that gave expression to such feelings
by bringing a new perspective on such issues which had nothing of the philosophical debates but
merely signalled at a series of existential issues not trying to offer a solution but letting the
readers/ audience wonder. It was in the very work of Camuss existential assessment from The
Myth of Sisyphus (1942) that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose that
the plays of the 50s and early 60s found their substance.
The new trend was labelled the Theatre of the Absurd by one of the key theorists and
analysts of this literature, that is Martin Esslin in his study The Theatre of the Absurd (1961).
Absurd, as Esslin explains in his study, means literally out of harmony (out of harmony
with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical) and moves away from the
simplistic meaning of ridiculous coming to designate Camuss view of the situation of the
human modernity strangers in an inhuman universe.69 The critic continues by offering
Ionescos definition of the term from his own perspective:
Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. [] Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and
transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless. 70

The world is presented as senseless and lacking a unifying principle that would give it definition
and tangibly fixed coordinates in space and time. This universe is permeated either by a feeling
of melancholy and futility born out of the disillusionment of old age and chronic hopelessness
or by an aggressive, earthy note tinged with social and political overtones or it bears a
fantastic knock-about flavour of tragical71 clowning.
With a constant variation between the absurdly straightforward comic and the bitterly
subtle tragic, the Theatre of the Absurd presents a vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a
purpose and to control its fate. The human being is left at the end of this undertaking hopeless,
bewildered and anxious because the whole action seems without a genuine motivation and at first
sight nonsensical.
The Theatre of the Absurd appeared as a reaction against the logical structures of
traditional theatre, and thus, it parodies or dismisses realism and the concept of traditional
69

Esslin, Martin (1977): The Theatre of the Absurd, revised and enlarged edition, Penguin Books, p. 23.
Eugne Ionesco, Dans les armes de la ville, Cahiers de la Compagnie Madeleine Renaud Jean-Louis Barrault,
Paris, no. 20, October 1957, apud Martin Esslin, op.cit., p. 23.
71
Esslin, Martin, The Theatre of the Absurd, in Kostelanetz, Richard (ed.) (1969): On Contemporary Literature,
Avon, p. 206.
70

34

structure. Plays belonging to this genre have neither a beginning nor an end 72 and present not
fully developed episodes of life and the manners of life, but are mere reflections of dreams and
nightmares73. Their structure instead of presenting an evolution towards a final solution have a
cyclical construction bringing the characters at the end in the same position as at the beginning
and hinting at a potential similar cycle in the future (see Waiting for Godot and Endgame). No
plot develops, but plays are built on an accumulation of small, trivial happenings, spontaneous
associations of aberrant memories and meaningless everyday speech.
Martin Esslin in his Theatre of the Absurd defined plays of the absurd as those that
present mans metaphysical absurdity in an aberrant dramatic style that mirrors the human
situation. These plays do not argue about the absurdity of the human condition, but they merely
present it in the simplest concrete stage images, as Esslin puts it. Modern theatre is not interested
in discursive and narrative elements, but concentrates instead on one poetic image as a
materialization of the inner reality of the individual subconscious. It emerges as what was called
a theatre of situation rather than a theatre of events in sequence 74 and thus language develops
not as argumentative, discursive speech, but rather as a system based on concrete images.
Little dramatic action, as it was understood conventionally, is developed, but on the
contrary there is a rejection of narrative continuity. Plays of the Theatre of the Absurd are not
concerned with telling a story so as to teach a moral lesson; they do not follow the evolution of
human passions but they render only one episode of the authors personal world. At the level of
the narrative thread they seem to be plays in which nothing really ever happens75 but they
simply want to create through the images and themes developed as complex an image as possible
of a basic and static situation. This fact is only hinted at through the development of the action or
is plainly stated as in Becketts Waiting for Godot:
Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, its awful! (p. 41)

This does not mean however that there is no dramatic suspense. In trying to answer the
question What is going to happen next? the audience does not have only the answer stated
above, but can also argue that Anything may happen next and thus the public is challenged into
formulating the questions that will draw them closer to finding the meaning of the play. At the
same time, the drama lies in the recognition of the anxiety and despair that seize man when
realizing that he will permanently hit upon areas of impenetrable darkness 76, the darkness of
72

Esslin, Martin, 1977, op.cit., p. 22.

Ibidem.
74
Idem, p. 393.
75
Ibidem.
76
Idem, p. 416.
73

35

him not knowing his true nature and purpose, the feeling of living in a vacuum brought on by the
destruction of a set of beliefs that had been universally accepted and unified in its construction.
Man does not fear death anymore as the ultimate source of misfortune and depression, but his
tragedy emerges now from an attempt to recreate a coherent whole out of the chaotic world in
which he lives and out of the chaotic inner labyrinthine world of memories, desires, hopes,
frustrations, regrets, language.
II.

The message(s) of the plays

Consequently the message of such plays seems to be the mere signalling of ridiculous,

purposeless behaviour all painted with a comic gloss, but an in depth analysis reveals most of the
times a metaphysical message. Michael Esslin says that even if these plays are often
superciliously dismissed as nonsense or mystification, [they] have something to say and can be
understood.77 This meaning looked for by the artists of the 50s and 60s can be deciphered
according to the critic at two levels: on the one hand the absurd presented in these plays
castigates, satirically, the absurdity of our lives lived unaware and without an alert consciousness
at what happens in the outer reality they signal at our feeling of deadness and mechanical
senseless; we live half developed lives and we do not even control this half but rather are borne
into it out of inertia; on the other hand the theatre of the absurd signals at the absurdity of human
life brought on by the decline of religious beliefs which has deprived man of the feeling of
certitude and brought him in the midst of indetermination and hesitation. 78 Despite the
paradoxical or illogical, simplistic or humorous, grotesque or caricatural, frivolous or irreverent
appearance, the Theatre of the Absurd aims at bringing on stage a confrontation of man with the
spheres of myth and religious reality, signalling at mans precarious and mysterious position in
the universe, but there is no attempt at explaining the validity of any generally accepted cosmic
system of values. The plays bring on stage basic issues and problems of the age with the sole
purpose of steering the publics attention onto them and making readers/ viewers wonder at their
significance. The Theatre of the Absurd does not attempt to give a solution but it merely presents
mans sense of being, in anxiety and with derision as seen by the playwright, fact which
constitutes itself, according to Esslin79, in the subject-matter of the Theatre of the Absurd. By
deriding his anxieties, man discharges his tensions and thus liberating laughter helps him move
over the shock of acknowledging the absurdity of the universe. Its final meaning, as inferred by
77

Idem, p. 21.
Idem, pp. 390391.
79
Idem, p. 392.
78

36

Martin Esslin in his study80 may seem to be that of making man face and come to terms with the
world in which he lives he will surpass his disappointment and feeling of unfitness if he frees
himself from the world of illusions and if he copes with the human condition as it is.
III.

The comic of the plays

The sources of the comic exploited in these plays can be traced in commedia dellarte,

vaudeville, music hall, circus clowning with elements of the acting including now mime and
acrobatics. It is woven either in language, or in the gestures of the characters, or in the incidents
they are dragged into.
Its purpose is that of showing men the truth about themselves by challenging them into
seeing their dislikes, frustrations and dissatisfaction in a way which generates ridicule, anger or
horror this is the device known as black humour (also known as dark/ morbid humour or
black/ dark comedy81). These plays juxtapose morbid or ghastly elements with comic ones and
treat serious issues of life in a bitter ironic or sarcastic manner. Most of the times the absurd
predicament in which the characters are presented shows human beings without convictions and
little hope, laughing, however, at their sour despair in the notes of sardonic humour. 82 Thus,
issues in ones life such as death, suicide, domestic violence, disease, insanity, addiction, war are
approached humorously or satirically making man deride them or regard them with humour, but
stopping at the level of contemplation and not taking seriously action of protest or revolt. Traces
of such a device can be found even in Osbornes Look Back in Anger where the reader is faced
with such a view upon death:
Anyone whos never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity. (Act I,
p. 57)

The reader/ audience react only with humorous toleration towards the existential problems that
are brought onto the stage and use laughter as an antidote to lifes hardships. Becketts definition
of laughter seems to sum up best the way in which man can choose to cross the line towards
laughter when finding himself on the edge of the thin line between tears and laughter. According
to his definition given in his novel Watt, the highest form of laughter is the laugh laughing at the

80

Idem, p. 418.
Gallows humour is to be distinguished from black humour in the fact that it is a type of grim and ironic humour
that arises from stressful, traumatic, disastrous, life-threatening situations such as accidents, disease, wartime events,
natural disasters, in which case death is most of the time, impending and unavoidable. It also differs from black
humour in that it is made by the person affected.
82
Cf. Cuddon, A. J. (1999): The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, fourth edition, Penguin,
p. 87.
81

37

laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs at that
which is unhappy.83
Humour, black or otherwise, is created through such elements as:
lack of understanding between the characters,
Vladimir: the third says that both of them abused him. Estragon: Who? V: What? E:
Whats all this about? Abused who? V: The Saviour. E: Why? V: Because he wouldnt save
them. E: From hell? V: Imbecile! From death. E: I thought you said hell. V: From death,
from death. E: Well what of it? (Waiting for Godot, pp. 1415)

the use of abstract nouns as concrete,

Vladimir: I dont understand. Estragon: Use your intelligence, cant you? [Vladimir uses his
intelligence] V: [Finally] I remain in the dark. (p. 19)

the playful, illogical takeover of the other ones flow of speech and ideas,
Estragon: And what did he reply? Vladimir: That hed see. E: That he couldnt promise
anything. V: That hed have to think it over. E: In the quiet of his home. V: Consult his
family. E: His friends. V: His agents. E: His correspondents. V: His books. E: His bank
account. V: Before taking a decision. (p. 20)

the hypocritical miming of understanding,

Estragon: Que voulez-vous? Vladimir: I beg your pardon? E: Que voulez-vous? V: Ah!
Que voulez-vous. Exactly. (p. 60)

childish squabbles,
Estragon: Thats the idea, lets abuse each other. [They turn, move apart, turn again and face
each other.] V: Moron! E: Vermin! V: Abortion! E: Morpion! V: Sewer-rat! E: Curate!
V: Cretin. E: [With finality.] Crritic! V: Oh! [He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.] E:
Now lets make it up. V: Gogo! E: Didi! (p. 70)

slapstick comedy84 incidents,

Estragon: Why dont we hang ourselves? Vladimir: With what? E: We havent got a bit of
rope? V: No. E: Then we cant. [Silence.] V: Lets go. E: Wait, theres my belt. V: Its
too short. E: You could hang on to my legs. V: And whod hang on to mine? E: True. V:
Show all the same. [Estragon loosens the cord that hold up his trousers which, much too big for
him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.] It might do at a pinch. But is it strong enough?
E: Well soon see. Here. [They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall.]
V: Not worth a curse. (p. 87)

pseudo-aphoristic or witty remarks,

Estragon: [Aphoristic for once.] We are all born mad. Some remain so. (p. 75)

unexpected turnovers,
Vladimir and Estragon after trying in vain for some time to get up, finally come to
a quick solution: Estragon: Suppose we got up to begin with. Vladimir: No harm in trying.
[They get up.] E: Childs play. V: Simple question of will-power. (p. 78)

repetitions of words or sounds (e.g. Acacacacademy, Anthropopopometry)

invention of names (e.g. Fartov, Belcher)
83

Samuel Beckett, Watt, apud Iulia-Veronica Beldiman, The Idiosyncrasies of Samuel Becketts Black Humour, in
Hulban, Horia (ed.) (2006): Style in Language, Discourses and Literature, volume IV, Editura Tehnopress, Iai, p.
185.
84
Slapstick comedy broad comedy characterizes by boisterous action, as the throwing of pies in actors faces,
people hitting each other or accidentally running into each other, farcical situations and horseplay, jokes, pratfalls
and fall overs.

38

All of these strategies, however, are not simply and purely meant to stir laughter but they
signal in fact the futility of the protagonists actions to give them the illusion of an active life.
The bitterness of the author permeates the characters lines and the situations they pass through
or it is outwardly expressed in strangely profound judgements emitted by one or other of his
heroes:
Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? (p. 64)

IV.

Characters
The characters in modern theatre are engaged in a frantic absurd permanent busyness of

irrational thought and confused gestures which wants render their activism, but in fact which
only proves their inability to really change anything in their existence. They have no coherence
whatsoever and the rigidity of their logic leads to absurd conclusions. In the context of the new
society based on consumption they have undergone important metamorphoses in their
manifestation on stage and consequently in the manner in which they are interpreted. They can
no longer be defined through the functions and roles they perform for they are reduced to an
existential attitude. What defines them now is what they do or what they do not do as they
remain at the level of unfulfilled intention. The end of the play finds them in the same position
and status as at the beginning and it is in the final part of the play that we feel the absurd(ity) of
their existence more acutely for we do not understand the purpose of their actions on the itinerary
they follow.
The Theatre of the absurd brings on stage characters who seem mechanical puppets 85,
marionettes, automatons doing and saying the same thing in different moments of their existence
(not to say each day, as in Becketts Waiting for Godot), they have no clearly defined
individuality and often change condition completely (see the change that Pozzo and Lucky in
Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot undergo). They seem to be helped by their creators by being
placed quite often in pairs that are supposed to complement each other (Becketts Vladimir and
Estragon, Lucky and Pozzo in Waiting for Godot, Hamm and Clov, Nell and Nagg in Endgame,
Winnie and Willie in Happy Days, Pinters Mick and Aston in The Caretaker), but this
interdependence is also meant to render the relation of dominance that exists between people, the
manifesting of suppression of the active over the passive.
Another feature pervading the personality of the characters from these plays is that of
alienation both between the characters from within the play as well as between the characters
and the audience. Man is stripped of any social position or historical context, he is brought back
85

Esslin, Martin, 1977, op.cit., p. 22.

39

to making basic choices (to go to live/ to stay to die, to submit to/ to rebel against, to defend/
to accuse). But despite this apparent struggle in finding a path in life they have no clear goal and
their motives and actions are highly incomprehensible. Because the audience finds it difficult to
identify themselves with such characters they remain simply comic. The public could not
possibly identify with somebody who loses his trousers or with a pair of characters who
indefatigable exchange their hats in an attempt deciphered by us as the innermost strenuous
effort they could do so as to find their thoughts or their power of thinking (see Becketts Waiting
for Godot). That is why such a scene remains highly and exclusively comic despite its sombre,
violent, and bitter subject-matter. Such issues made critics infer that the Theatre of the Absurd
transcends the categories of comic and tragedy and combines laughter with horror.86
V.

Time and Space

The main change appearing in the Theatre of the Absurd in what time and space are
concerned is the fact that there are no temporal or spatial markers to set the action against. If in
traditional theatre there was always a reference to a certain real age and the characters were
projected against a well determined topology or chronology, with the Theatre of the Absurd the
spatio-temporal frame is not defined, it is anonymous and at the same time it seems to be
universal. A country road, a room, a mound, the living-room of a house in a seaside
town, desert, bare interior or rural sounds define a type of space which could exist on
almost any coordinate of the globe. A morning in summer, a night in winter, evening are
as vague temporal markers. In these plays reality, outer existence seem to encompass all the
temporal dimensions and they are viewed themselves as processes of temporalization. More than
this, time often turns into a character and it becomes a series of nows (Beckett) or it is felt as a
gap between past and present (Pinter).
The type of space which supports mans manifestation in such a time is small, isolated (see
the small crammed because of crowdedness room in Pinters The Caretaker or see the two bins
in which Nell and Nagg from Becketts Endgame live) creating and enhancing mans
impossibility to communicate his efforts in taking a refuge. Or, if it is an open space (see the
country road from Waiting for Godot), such spatial dimension acts as a trap upon the characters
which cannot escape it for they do not move.
VI.
86

Language

Idem, p. 401.

40

One of the greatest revolutionary aspects with the Theatre of the Absurd came with its
treatment of language. Because playwrights have felt the devaluation of the word and its slippage
onto a more and more denotative slope, they responded by performing an experiment with
language itself.
The experiments to which it was subjected gave rise to a language which is dislocated,
disjointed, and full of:

clichs,

puns87 (= play on words),

repetitions,

non sequiturs88,

stereotyped phrases,

conventionalised speech (see the allusions to the academic type of speech in

Luckys monologue from Becketts Waiting for Godot) or

technical jargon (see Micks description of his dream house in Pinters The
Caretaker) meant to support the parody and highlight the absurdity of language in
context.

The dramatic writing also embodies a concentration on the non-communicative aspects of

language such as:
the use of highly ambiguous constructions;
shocking incoherence and inconsistencies;
meaningless, aberrant conversation;
gaps, silences, pauses denying any rational structuring.
The dialogue develops often as an opposite to the line of action adopted by the characters or
degenerates into lists of words and phrases from a dictionary or a travellers conversation
book.89 Thus, it can be said that it develops zero degree of communication characters replies
are incoherent, there are communication gaps and incongruences between questions and answers.
87

Pun an amusing use of a word or phrase that has two meanings, or of words that have the same sound but
different meanings. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)
88
Non sequitur = 1. incongruous statement: a statement that appears unrelated to a statement that it follows; 2.
unwarranted conclusion: a conclusion that does not follow from its premises. (Microsoft Encarta World English
Dictionary)
89
Cf. Esslin, Martin in Kostelanetz, Richard, op.cit., p. 205.

41

But even if they go beyond the surface plot, it is through the lines of these isolated monologues
(revolving around a central concept) or duologues90 (supported by silences and pauses) that the
dramatic tension is created.
The radical devaluation of language is derived from the scepticism about the meaning of
language, about its possibility of yielding an explanation to mans purpose in the world and its
possibility of achieving genuine communication between human beings and passing beyond a
superficial layer which only mimics a meaningful verbal exchange between people. The
relativization, devaluation and criticism of language seem to be in accordance with the trends in
the philosophy of those times (see Wittgensteins system of thinking and his word games) in an
attempt to disentangle language from the conventions of rules of grammar which do not
necessarily have to be the rules of logic.
Plays in the Theatre of the Absurd seem to give expression to an open abandonment of
rational devices and discursive thought.91 Unlike classical theatre in which language bore a much
deeper meaning at the level of argumentation, the language of the Theatre of the Absurd borrows
from the interplay of the circus and music hall and it functions as an interdependent component
in a multidimensional artistic imagery of visual elements (costume), movement (exits and
entrances, mime, gait, pratfalls, embraces and behaviour), voice and light (light and shadow).
But the main feature of language in plays of the Theatre of the Absurd is that it appears as more
and more in contradiction to the reality that it states:
Estragon: Well, shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes, lets go
[They do not move]

But this does not mean that such experiments are meant to reject any meaning attached to
language whatsoever. Even if the general tendency of this interplay of the lines in a dialogue is to
throw the reader/ viewer in a jungle of words seemingly brought together by a Dadaist fluke,
there are isolated moments in which the characters utter surprising apothegms (Habit is a great
deadener says Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, p. 84) or issue judgements which seem quoted
from the most profound philosophers:
The more people I meet, the happier I become. From the meanest creature one departs wiser,
richer, more conscious of ones blessings. (Waiting for Godot, p. 30.)

But they become so much more absurd and devoid of meaning because of the context in which
they are uttered or because of the insanity of the characters that enunciate them. Or they are lost
between the comic notes of a stave whose musical quality is created by the phonetic, rhythmical
association of words many times rhyming as in a poem.
90

Duologue a conversation or dialogue between two people, especially in dramatic performance. (Webster New
World Dictionary and Thesaurus)
91
Esslin, Martin, 1977, op.cit., p. 23.

42

Some features of language showing the way in which it developed include:

one characters remark continues the other ones line of thought;
characters manifest a concern with language itself;
language helps crystallizing inaction into dramatic action;
the presence of cross-purpose dialogue92 and farcical (=ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd) answers;
brisk rhythms of dialogue based on shortness of speeches;
the use of half sentences and half meanings;
speech and action are distorted and emptied of meaning;
language does not support the action but the precarious identities of the characters;
language has many of the qualities of poetry.
The unity of such aberrant structures is given by the fact that language supports the main
themes (the problem of the identity of the characters; the manner in which present relates to the
past; the manner in which memories relate to desire; the way in which present actions relate to
future goals) and, at the same time, they support a feeling of physical violence and scenes of
shock and madness which outline a theatre of a new, almost eccentric ritual.

HAROLD PINTER (1930 ) The Caretaker

The play was first presented at the Arts Theatre, London, 27 th April 1960, and published
the same year meeting a massive appraisal of public and critics alike. As the majority of plays
belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd, it presents a slice of life and the characters feelings in
this particular moment not accepting any generalistic interpretation or typifying.
The play merely wants to present a drama in itself, the characters living in a present
outside any other dimension of time. The discarding of the structures of plot is not however
92

Cross-purpose dialogue conflicting or contrary purpose; at cross-purposes if two people are at cross-purposes
they do not understand each other because they are talking about different things but fail to realize this. (Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English)

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complete, as in the case of Becketts plays. One of the characteristic elements of Pinters plays
(as part of the Theatre of the Absurd) is that despite its absurdly comical elements (of setting,
situations, and dialogue) the play passes beyond the notes of zany comedy bearing more of the
elements of black humour and making the reader give a bitter smile at being presented so
straightforwardly with the feeling of loss and confusion in his life. It could not be otherwise in
the context of fear, horror and mystery created through the violence of speech or long
inexplicable, ominous moments of silence. Pinter himself showed large preoccupations with
theorizing upon silence. This is how he describes it:
There are two silences one when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of
language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its
continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we dont hear when true
silence falls we are still left with the echo but are near nakedness. One way of looking at speech is
to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.93

Among the themes of Pinters The Caretaker we can identify: truth, lies, reality vs.
fantasy (disguised behind mental disturbance), the struggle for power/ domination/ control
through manipulation the play is as an odd mixture of accounts or promises all made on the
false grounds of winning the interlocutors favours or of manipulating him into complying with
ones requests and desires. Deception and the twisting of reality act at a double level of
manipulating the other and deluding oneself. Davis wants to manipulate either Aston or Mick
into believing his stories and into accepting him and manages to delude himself into believing
that he had a great past and great possibilities of being reinstated into a respectable position and
status by retrieving his papers from Sidcup. His going under a false name is one of the most
direct strategies of hiding his real self from the others and from himself.
The play also presents mans jostling for a position, a theme which is also put in relation
to his desperate need to clutch to a goal so as to protect himself or fight against a permanent
nameless menace: Davis wants to go to Sidcup and get his papers in attempt to retrieve his lost
identity, Aston wants to build a shed thus finding more of the protection he yearns for, Mick
wants to convert the house into a penthouse, so as to better outline his feeling of belongingness,
prove his skills to himself and probably extend his protection onto his brother.
Mans struggle to define his own identity is rendered through the idea of permanent
search of something (Daviss papers and name; Astons understanding of his past). In an attempt
to give an outline at least to his material identity, Davis is being offered a pair of shoes 94 which
93

Harold Pinter on http://www.anotheramerica.org/harold_pinter's_war.htm.

This motif could function at communicating more levels, meanings according to the idiom in which the noun is
explained: to wear fitting shoes- would imply to feel at ease/ peace with ones existence; to fill ones shoes = to
take ones place; in anothers shoes = in anothers position the last two expressions explaining Daviss position as
an intruder in the lives of the bothers and a violator of their territory.
94

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he first refuses and then yearns for or even pleads for. His fussiness on the mater is bitterly
comic.
Another theme is that of the family relationships viewed in a somewhat nostalgic,
permanent presence that never fades away from its affection despite the hardships between
members of the family. The origins of such a topic have been identified by critics in Pinters real
life and his acquaintance of two brothers who brought a tramp to stay with them for period of
time. The playwright is said to have even spoken with him occasionally because of the
identification brought by the similar financial state the two were in.
The setting, acting most of the time as a trap, communicates important issues about the
characters inhabiting it the room in which the entire play develops is one crowded with all sorts
of junk (paint buckets, boxes, screws, vases, a kitchen sink, a step-ladder, a lawn-mower, a
shopping-trolley, suitcases, a rolled-up carpet, a pile of newspapers, a Buddha statue on top of
the gas stove, a blow-lamp, a wooden chair, a clothes horse, planks of wood, a very old electric
toaster, a bucket hanging from the ceiling used to catch water from a leaking roof) while the way
out a window is covered with a sack. The metaphorical meanings of such an agglomeration
with objects are on the hand, the suggestion of an outer disorder that triggers an inner disorder
of the characters, and on the other hand, the accumulation of all these items which implies that
not only the objects are useless but the inhabitants of the space as well. The feeling of
uselessness/ purposelessness/ pointlessness is suggested by the characters ineffectual work (see
especially Aston permanently mending something).
The breaking down of the equilibrium and the appearance of disorder in the life of the
two brothers Mick and Aston begins when a third party (as in more of Pinters plays) comes
to disturb the precarious balance. The re-establishing of the stereotyped order can only be
achieved between the brothers (as manifestations of different aspects of the psyche) by the
eviction of the intruder tramp (as an expression of an exacerbated id).
But this state of disorder and confusion is not only physically created the characters are
forgetful or omissive of their past and thus they are ignorant or biased and selective in their
memories and in their motivations.
Another aspect of such a space is the creation of an intimate space which is almost all the
time under the threat of an outer agent, a threat which comes to take into possession ones private
territory and evict, at least psychologically if not physically, the rightful owners.

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Language signals one of the major themes of the play, that is breakdown in
communication. The devices achieving such meanings include: broken sentences, non sequiturs,
repetitions, pauses with no apparent reason, refusal to listen to the other.
The manner in which language was materialized in inconsequential dialogue or
obsessional monologue is what constituted Pinters original contribution to the Theatre of the
Absurd. The characters disjointed speech (made up of colloquial vocabulary and oddly
ambivalent conversation punctuated by one of Pinters trademarks moments of silence) also
contributes to the amplification of a state of confusion, alienation and loss. At the same time, the
moments of silence, the pauses in ones speech (see especially Astons monologue at the end of
act II) give rise to ambivalent interpretations regarding the nature of the hesitation in speech or
prove once more the ambivalence of language. This type of inconsequential language is only
meant to challenge the reader into searching for an unspoken meaning hidden behind it.
Pinters most innocuous pieces of dialogue or his moments of silence are only meant to
send us at another dimension of meaning and understanding, thus reaching another type of
communication. As he himself says:
I think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place
is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves.
Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone elses life is too frightening. To disclose to
others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.95

SAMUEL BECKETT (19061989) Waiting for Godot

95

Harold Pinters words on http://everything2.com/e2node/Speech%2520and%2520Silence%253A%2520

understanding%2520the%2520 plays%2520of%2520Harold%2520Pinter.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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