Theatre of the Absurd Origins
The theatre of the absurd was a short-lived yet significant theatrical movement, centred in Paris in the 1950s. The beginnings of absurdism lie in avant-garde theatre experiments during the 1920s and 30s.
It was not a conscious movement per se, and no single practitioner was spearheading the emergence of this type of drama. Exponents of the form were a disconnected group of playwrights whose works were based on the philosophy of existentialism. These included Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet (with some scholars also including Arthur Adamov). Scholar Martin Esslin first coined the movement’s title in his 1961 text The Theatre of the Absurd.
Common elements in absurdist plays included illogical plots inhabited by characters who appeared out of harmony with their own existence. The typical playgoer had never seen anything like this on the European stage.
More contemporary playwrights whose selected works have been labelled absurdist include Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Fernando Arrabal, and Peter Weiss. However, most of these playwrights deny the label attributed to them.
The theatre of the absurd will be remembered in history for many things, the most significant being Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot, today regarded as one of the great plays of the 20th century.
Existentialism refers to a particular view of the nature of man’s existence. The existentialist believes that man starts life with nothing. His life is made up of acts; through the process of acting man becomes conscious of his original nothingness. By choosing to act, man passes into the arena of human responsibility which makes him the creator of his own existence.
JERRY L. CRAWFORD, ACTING: IN PERSON AND IN STYLE
Existentialism and the Absurd
For Camus, the legendary figure of Sisyphus was the prototype of an ‘absurd’ hero, condemned by the gods forever to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll back down again by its own weight. He represented the epitome of futile labor and pointless existence.
J.L Styan, MODERN DRAMA IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 2
Theatre of the Absurd Techniques
1. Plot and Structure
… a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What’s more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice.
VIVIAN MERCER, THE IRISH TIMES, 18 FEBRUARY 1956, ON THE PLOT OF SAMUEL BECKETT’S PLAY ‘WAITING FOR GODOT‘
2. Acting and Characterisation
3. Movement
… the absurdists, while for the most part accepting Sartre’s philosophical outlook, tended to concentrate upon the irrationality of human experience without suggesting any path beyond. By employing a succession of episodes unified merely by theme or mood instead of a cause-to-effect arrangement, they arrived at a structure paralleling the chaos which was their usual dramatic subject. The sense of absurdity was heightened by the juxtaposition of incongruous events producing seriocomic and ironic effects.
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4. Dialogue
5. Stagecraft and Production
6. Absurdism Plays
7. Other Notable Works
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I think it is so amazing that this is where we are in society. I wish that we could all distance ourselves from the pain and confusion and loss like Brecht wants us to do as an audience.
Thanks. V helpful.
Ron Roberts
The theater of the absurd is happening all around us, right now.
We needto bring the absurd to the streets in a joyous celebration of the insanity in us all. Time to add a little color back into the act
Thank you so much for the extremely organised and clear notes! They have helped me immensely, as lots of useful information is presented in such a succinct manner, meaning i don’t have to read pages and pages of writing to find the one sentence that i actually need.
Thank you again!
Miss faida ! are you done with your theise. ??Now I am doing my master thseis on absurdist tropes in Muhammad Hanif’s red birds. can you help me out?
When was this page first posted (for citing it as a source)?
Thank you so much! This helped me in my theatre class and I got an A.
very clear and easy to understand for the students
Amazing and perfect for students understanding. I found it very helpful and easy.Thanks
Thanks Justin, I always use your website as a reference for my students.
Hope you know how truly great http://www.dramateacher.com is for many Drama teachers!
Well explained
A big thanks. It helped me for my notes.
Brilliantly succinct summary. Thanks!
Very useful informative, motivated
Thank you so much…. it is really helpful
I am doing w thesis of master degree about Absurd Theatre (the zoo story / who is afraid of virgenia woolf written By Edward Albee ) i’ll be thankful if you can help me bye some resources . thanks a lot
Nice piece of work !
Nice study 🙂
Thanks for your work! Very helpful.
Hi this was a true inspearimiration to me.
amazing
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This is an excellent summary brings back memories of undergraduate Theatre study. I really enjoy reading the entries from this blog, thank you again
Thanks, really useful summary!
Just a note, my lecturer at University used to point at the language of Beckett as ‘poetic’, especially in Waiting for Godot.