When critic Martin Esslin coined the term “Theatre of the Absurd”, many saw that iconoclastic 1950s and 60s theatre movement as more or less exclusively a French phenomena. And it’s easy to see why that impression was a persuasive one. All the early key figures of absurdist theatre had a connexion with France, specifically with Paris. While only Jean Genet was born in the country, the other seminal names in the Theatre of the Absurd exiled themselves from their native countries to Paris before the onset of the movement – Beckett born in Dublin but spent most of his adult life in France; Adamov, a Russian–born Armenian moved to Paris at 16; Ionesco, Romanian–born but lived most of his life in France. Fernando Arrabal, born in a Spanish enclave in Morocco, also an important “member” of that “non–club” of unconventional writers for the stage, exiled himself from the authoritarianism of Franco’s Spain to Paris in his early twenties (Arrabal described himself as “desterrado” (“half–expatriate”, “half–exiled“).
The Automobile Graveyard, Arrabal
Far from being confined to Parisian literary circles, the Theatre of the Absurd had an impact in other countries during this period. Most notably Harold Pinter in Britain and Edward Albee in the US were important contributors to the movement. Other playwrights from outside France whose works express the preoccupations, observations on morality and trappings of absurdist drama include NF Simpson, James Saunders and David Campton (all from England), Sam Shepard and Arthur Kopit (USA), Václav Havel (Czechoslovakia) and Max Frisch (Switzerland).
The Dumb Waiter, Pinter (source: Theatre Press)
The “Theatre of the Absurd” appellation never sat well with the practitioners themselves who tended to reject this description of their art§. They “saw themselves as individual artists, not part of a collective, and viewed their plays as nothing more than the expression of their personal vision of the world” (‘Stage School: What Is Theatre of the Absurd?’ (Jennifer Chamberlain), The Skinny, 17 Feb. 2016, www.theskinny.co.uk). Not all of the “absurdists” were adherents of existentialism—like the movement’s spiritual father Camus—some were more concerned with the irrationality of contemporary human society. The common denominator for this group of dramatists is a rejection of realism. In its void the plays “express…images that are themselves absurd…(the prevalence of) bizarre situations and objects, both sad and comic” (Pears Cyclopedia, 82nd Ed, 1973–74), eg, aged parents confined (literally and symbolically) to dustbins (Beckett). A motif of the absurdist play is the presence of dada and surrealist elements, the first demonstrated in an air of irrationality and the absence of meaning and the latter in vivid depictions of dreamlike images (‘Theater of the Time’ (Noah Pion), Digital Theater Profile II: Jean Genet, www.journeys.dartmouth.edu).
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For more detail on the history and “pre–history” of the absurdist drama movement see the 2021 post ‘Theatre of the Absurd: Anti–Realism, Anti–Language, Anti–Play?’(open or copy link below):
A term you don’t hear much these days, even among the literati, is the Theatre of the Absurd. I first heard about this theatre genre in the Seventies, when I was introduced to the plays of Beckett and Pinter, and saw the AFT film version of Ionesco’s play The Rhinceros. Even then the Theatre of the Absurd had a kind of Fifties/Sixties feel to it. So where did it come from? Well, we have drama critic and scholar Martin Esslin to thank for the expression. In the late Fifties Esslin drew the dots between the work of various, otherwise disparate and unconnected contemporary playwrights who shared a particular world view and a number of traits and preoccupations. Esslin circa 1960 wrote that these ‘Absurdist’ playwrights were attacking the “comfortable certainties of religious and political orthodoxy, shocking audiences out of their complacency, bringing them face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation”, ie, that it is essentially absurd.
The philosophical framework for Absurdism and the Theatre of the Absurd was laid by French Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus. In his 1942 essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ Camus defines the human condition as basically meaningless and therefore absurd, arguing that “humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe (in Camus-speak = “formless chaos) was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd” (Crabb). Once we accept this inevitability we can get on with life. Camus’ existentialist view of the universe would go on to strike a receptive chord with the absurdist generation of dramatists.
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Martin Esslin
The emergence of a new theatre in the Fifties which staunchly rejected the realism of status quo postwar theatre and whose calling card was the statement life is meaningless was a reaction to the atrocities and unimaginable inhumanity of the Second World War. Interestingly, Esslin, following Camus, did not feel that the message of the Absurdists—the profound state of despair of humankind—was reason to be pessimistic about the world. Accepting the “mysteries of existence”—that we live in an irrational and “hostile universe” (Camus’ term), for which there are “no easy solutions” leaves (you) with “a sense of freedom and relief” and “the laughter of liberation” (Esslin).
(Image: redbubble.com)
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Theatre of the Absurd antecedents Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi is often thought of as “proto-Theatre of the Absurd”…bizarre, controversial, revolutionary, paper-thin plot, scatological scatterings, the characters speak in staccato sentences, Ubu Roi also highly influenced the Dadaist art and literary movement which along with Surrealism took its turn in passing the anti-realism torch on to the Theatre of the Absurd. Dadaism like the Absurdist plays was a reaction in part to war (WWI in this case)…as one of its main exponents Tristan Tzara explained: ”if human logic can lead the world to global war then art should abandon all logic and sense“. Likewise, Surrealism’s desire to shock audiences and its descent into the world of human dreams also anticipates some of the preoccupations of the Theatre of the Absurd.
Eugène Ionesco (Image: David Levine/NY Review)
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A theatre movement disassociated from its creators Unlike Surrealism and other arts genres, the Theatre of the Absurd was not a conscious movement. Despite Esslin identifying the Parisian avant-garde as its centre and Beckett, Ionesco, Genet and Adamov the leading figures of the Absurdist movement, there was no organised school of playwrights who identified themselves as its practitioners. Some like Ionesco in fact strongly objected to the label, preferring in his case the term “Theatre of Derision” to delineate his work. The exponents of this form of theatre were disassociated, each of the dramatists arrived independently at a similar style and a vision of the futility of human existence.
Beckett (Source: samuel beckettsociety.org)
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A revolutionary and subversive Theatre of the Absurd Playwrights like Beckett and Ionesco were committed to exploring absurdism in all its manifestations – philosophical, dramaturgical, existential, emotional, a radical form of drama that pushed the boundaries of theatre to the extremes (Dickson)…it’s distinctive features and innovations subverting the established theatre of the day. The Theatre of the Absurd radically departs from traditional theatrical conventions…dispensing with the conventional narrative of the “well-made play” with a beginning, a middle and an end, plots are typically disorganised, often with a non-linear or cyclical approach (“ever diminishing concentric circles”), nothing happens or if it does, it’s in a unmotivated way. Much use is made of ritual. Mysteries go unresolved and order is not restored at the end. Characters have no clear identities and have a homogeneity to them (eg, The Rhinoceros), they are not consistent even interchangeable (eg, Genet’s The Maids), characters don’t develop and are devoid of motivation or purpose.
Eternally waiting for Godot Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was one of the earliest and best known plays to be so designated, becoming an exemplar of Adsurdist theatre. It was controversially received when it premiered in 1953, later famously described by critic Vivian Mercer as “a play in which nothing happens, twice”. ‘Godot’ is a bleak tragi-comedy soaked in “existential despair”. The bleakness of the play is reinforced by the setting: no recognisable time or place❅, sparse set, minimally furnished. Stylistically the play is repetitive, open-ended almost empty of action but with snatches of vaudeville and philosophy. Characters utter illogical and circular dialogue while they wait…and wait for the title character (who never appears). Beckett’s later plays became more and more reductionist, language pared back towards “Endgame” silence.
Beckett’s ‘Endgame’ (Photo: New York Times)
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The war on language The breakdown of language is a preoccupation in Absurdist Theatre. In Ionesco’s The Bald Sopranolanguage disintegrates rapidly, demonstrating its failure as a tool of communication. Nonsense dialogue, characters speaking in gibberish, absurdist dramas often abound in cliches, slogans and non-sequiturs. The plays of Ionesco and NF Simpson also specialise in satirising “the modern prostitution of language corrupted by salesmen and politicians”. Ionesco distinguished between the way he and Beckett assailed language: “Beckett destroys language with silence. I do it with too much language, with characters talking at random, and by inventing words“ (Interview, Paris Review, 1984).
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Source: LA Times)
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Representing British colours in the Club de l’Absurde were Harold Pinter (The Dumb Waiter) and Tom Stoppard…the latter’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Deadinvolves a “Godotesque” waiting game with a similar sense of anticlimax. ‘Ros’ and ‘Guil’, relocated from Hamlet, are interchangeable characters who pass the time engaging in philosophical musings and mind-numbing circular discourses with each other.
Camus, ‘godfather’ of Absurdist Theatre (Photo: The Telegraph, UK)
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Footnote: Trans-Atlantic Absurdist Although essentially a European movement, Esslin (less convincingly) includes American Edward Albee into the collection of Absurdist dramatists on the basis that his plays (eg, The Zoo Story, The American Dream, The Sandbox) attack “America’s foundation of optimism”.
‘Zoo Story’ (Photo: Front Row Center)
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❅ a feature of Theatre of the Absurd plays is a sense of timelessness
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Bibliography:
Martin Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd (1961)
Jerome P. Crabb, ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’, Theatre Database, 2006, www.theatredatabase.com
‘Nonsense talk: Theatre of the Absurd’, Andrew Dickson, Discovering Literature: 20th century, 07-Sep-2017, www.bl.uk
‘Absurdity in Theater: Ubu Roi’, Nermin Büsra Kirisik, Artil, www.artilmagazine.com
‘Beckett, Ionesco and the Theater if the Absurd: Crash Course Theater #45′ (Video, 2018)
