Theater Of Absurd

Done by: Siddhant Jalan

Aashish Patel
 Theater of Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular 
plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the
late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from
their work. Their work expressed the belief that, in a godless universe, human existence
has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical
construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its
ultimate conclusion, silence [1]. Critic Martin Esslin coined the term "Theatre of the
Absurd", relating these plays based on a broad theme of absurdity, roughly similar to the
way Albert Camus uses the term. The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s
reaction to a world apparently without meaning or man as a puppet controlled or
menaced by an invisible outside force. Though the term is applied to a wide range of
plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar
to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless
situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés,
wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or
dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". Playwrights commonly
associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, 
Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fernando Arrabal, and
Edward Albee.
 Origin of the term
The term was coined by the critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of a book
on the subject first published in 1961 and in two later revised editions; the
third and final edition appeared in 2004, in paperback with a new foreword
by the author. In the first edition of The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin saw
the work of these playwrights as giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus'
philosophy that life is inherently without meaning as illustrated in his work 
The Myth of Sisyphus. In the first (1961) edition, Esslin presented the four
defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, 
Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth
playwright,Harold Pinter–although each of these writers has unique
preoccupations and techniques that go beyond the term "absurd."[2][3] Other
writers associated with this group by Esslin and other critics include 
Tom Stoppard[4], Friedrich Dürrenmatt[5], Fernando Arrabal[6], Edward Albee
[7],Boris Vian[8], and Jean Tardieu[6][2][3].
 History
The "Absurd" or "New Theater" movement was originally a Paris-based (and a Rive Gauche) avant-
garde phenomenon tied to extremely small theaters in the Quartier Latin. Some of the
Absurdists were born in France such as Jean Genet[60], Jean Tardieu[61], and Boris Vian[62]. Many
other Absurdists were born elsewhere but lived in France, writing often in French: 
Samuel Beckett from Ireland[61]; Eugène Ionesco fromRomania[61]; Arthur Adamov from Russia
[61]
; and Fernando Arrabal from Spain[63]. As the influence of the Absurdists grew, the style
spread to other countries–with playwrights either directly influenced by Absurdists in Paris or
playwrights labeled Absurdist by critics. In England some of whom Esslin considered
practitioners of "the Theatre of the Absurd" include: Harold Pinter[61], Tom Stoppard[64], 
N. F. Simpson[61],James Saunders[65], and David Campton[66]; in the United States, Edward Albee
[61]
, Sam Shepard[67], Jack Gelber[68], and John Guare[69]; in Poland, Tadeusz Różewicz[61], 
Sławomir Mrożek[61], and Tadeusz Kantor[70]; in Italy, Dino Buzzati[71]; and in Germany, 
Peter Weiss[72],Wolfgang Hildesheimer[61], and Günter Grass[61]. In India, both Mohit
Chattopadhyay[73] and Mahesh Elkunchwar[73] have also been labeled Absurdists. Other
international Absurdist playwrights include: Tawfiq el-Hakim from Egypt[74]; Hanoch Levin
 from Israel[75]; Miguel Mihurafrom Spain[76]; José de Almada Negreiros from Portugal[77]; 
Mikhail Volokhov from Russia; Yordan Radichkov from Bulgaria[78]; and playwright and former
Czech President Václav Havel[61], and others from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.[citation needed]
 Varieties and forms of absurd theatre

1. Tragicomedy
2. Formal experimentation
3. Pataphysics, Surrealism, and Dadaism
4. Relationship with Existentialism
 Tragicomedy
The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy.[9][10] As Nell says in Endgame,
"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness ... it's the most comical thing in the world".
[11] Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence on this aspect of the "Absurd

drama."[12] Shakespeare's influence is acknowledged directly in the titles of

Ionesco's Macbett and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt says in his essay "Problems of the Theatre", "Comedy alone
is suitable for us ... But the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We
can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening
moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's
tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises." [13]
Though layered with a significant amount of tragedy, the Theatre of the Absurd
echoes other great forms of comedic performance, according to Esslin, from 
Commedia dell'arte to Vaudeville.[9][14] Similarly, Esslin cites early film
comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, The Keystone Cops and Buster Keaton as
direct influences (Keaton even starred in Beckett's Film in 1965).[15]
 Formal experimentation
As an experimental form of theatre, Theatre of the Absurd employs techniques
borrowed from earlier innovators. Writers and techniques frequently mentioned in
relation to the Theatre of the Absurd include the 19th-century nonsense poets, such
as Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear[16]; Polish playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
[17]; the Russians Daniil Kharms[18], Nikolai Erdman[19], Mikhail Volokhov and

others; Bertolt Brecht's distancing techniques in his "Epic theatre"[20]; and the

"dream plays" of August Strindberg.[2][21]
One commonly cited precursor is Luigi Pirandello, especially 
Six Characters in Search of an Author.[21][22] Pirandello was a highly regarded
theatrical experimentalist who wanted to bring down the fourth wall presupposed by
the realism of playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen. According to W. B. Worthen, Six
Characters and other Pirandello plays use "Metatheater—roleplaying, 
plays-within-plays, and a flexible sense of the limits of stage and illusion—to
examine a highly theatricalized vision of identity".[23]
Another influential playwright was Guillaume Apollinaire whose The Breasts of
Tiresias was the first work to be called "surreal".[24][25][26]
 Pataphysics, Surrealism, and Dadaism
One of the most significant common precursors is Alfred Jarry whose wild, irreverent, and
lascivious Ubu plays scandalized Paris in the 1890s. Likewise, the concept of 'Pataphysics–"the
science of imaginary solutions"–first presented in Jarry's Gestes et opinions du docteur
Faustroll, pataphysicien (Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician)[27] was
inspirational to many later Absurdists[25], some of whom joined the Collège de 'pataphysique
founded in honor of Jarry in 1948[24][28] (Ionesco[29], Arrabal, and Vian[29][30] were given the title
Transcendent Satrape of the Collège de 'pataphysique). The Alfred Jarry Theatre, founded by 
Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac, housed several Absurdist plays, including ones by Ionesco
and Adamov.[31][32]
Artaud's "The Theatre of Cruelty" (presented in The Theatre and Its Double) was a particularly
important philosophical treatise. Artaud claimed theatre's reliance on literature was inadequate
and that the true power of theatre was in its visceral impact. [33][34][35] Artaud was aSurrealist, and
many other members of the Surrealist group were significant influences on the Absurdists. [36][37]
[38]

Absurdism is also frequently compared to Surrealism's predecessor, Dadaism (for example, the

Dadaist plays by Tristan Tzara performed at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich).[39] Many of the
Absurdists had direct connections with the Dadaists and Surrealists. Ionesco [40][41], Adamov[42][43],
and Arrabal[44] for example, were friends with Surrealists still living in Paris at the time
including Paul Eluard and André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Beckett translated
many Surrealist poems by Breton and others from French into English [45][46].
 Relationship with Existentialism
The Theatre of the Absurd is commonly associated with Existentialism, and Existentialism
was an influential philosophy in Paris during the rise of the Theatre of the Absurd;
however, to call it Existentialist theatre is problematic for many reasons. It gained this
association partly because it was named (by Esslin) after the concept of "absurdism"
advocated by Albert Camus, a philosopher commonly called Existentialist though he
frequently resisted that label. Absurdism is most accurately called Existentialist in the way 
Franz Kafka's work is labeled Existentialist: it embodies an aspect of the philosophy
though the writer may not be a committed follower. [47] As Tom Stoppard said in an
interview, "I must say I didn't know what the word 'existential' meant until it was applied
to Rosencrantz. And even now existentialism is not a philosophy I find either attractive or
plausible. But it's certainly true that the play can be interpreted in existential terms, as well
as in other terms."[48]
Many of the Absurdists were contemporaries with Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosophical
spokesman for Existentialism in Paris, but few Absurdists actually committed to Sartre's
own Existentialist philosophy, as expressed in Being and Nothingness, and many of the
Absurdists had a complicated relationship with him. Sartre praised Genet's plays, stating
that for Genet "Good is only an illusion. Evil is a Nothingness which arises upon the ruins
of Good".[49]
 Major productions
1. Jean Genet's The Maids (Les Bonnes) premiered in 1947.[79]
2. Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice Chauve) was first performed on May 11, 1950 at
the Théâtre des Noctambules. Ionesco followed this with The Lesson (La Leçon) in 1951 and The
Chairs (Les Chaises) in 1952.[80][81]
3. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was first performed on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone
in Paris.[82]
4. In 1957, Genet's The Balcony (Le Balcon) was produced in London at the Arts Theatre. [83]
5. In April 1957, Beckett's Endgame was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the
Studio des Champs-Élysées.[84]
6. That May, Harold Pinter's The Room was presented at The Drama Studio at the University of Bristol. [85]
[86]
 Pinter's The Birthday Partypremiered in the West End in 1958.[87]
7. Edward Albee's The Zoo Story premiered in West Berlin at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt in 1959. [88]
8. On the October 28 of that year, Krapp's Last Tape by Beckett was first performed at the Royal Court
Theatre in London.[89]
9. Fernando Arrabal's Picnic on the Battlefield (Pique-nique en campagne) also came out in 1958.[90][91]
10. Genet's The Blacks (Les Nègres) was published that year but was first performed at the Théatre de
Lutèce in Paris on the 28 October 1959.[92]