Transcript THE THETRE OF THE ABSURD

THE THEATRE
OF THE ABSURD
Samuel Beckett
Tom Stoppard
Albert
Camus
Eugène Ionesco
Harold Pinter
Albert Camus (The Myth of
Sysiphus, 1942)
A world that can be explained by reasoning,
however faulty, is a familiar world.But in a
universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions
and of light people feel strangers. They are
irremediable exiles because they are deprived of
memories of a lost homeland as much as they
lack the hope of a promised land to come.This
divorce between people and their lives,the actor
and his setting, truly constitues the feeling of
absurdity.
Eugene Ionesco(Dans les arms de
la ville, an essay on Kafka)
Absurd is that which is
devoid of purpose…
Cut off from his religious
, metaphysical &
transcendental roots,
man is lost, all his
actions become
senseless, absurd,
useless.
Loss of meaning: the world
appears frightening as it is
illogical
Historical & Philosophical
Backgound
Waning of religious feeling
Breakdown of the liberal faith in an
inevitable social progress after WW1
Relapse into barbarism, mass murder&
genocide in the course of hitler’s brief
ruleover Europe during WW2
Disillusionment with the hopes of a radical
social revolution as predicted by Marx
after Stalin had turned the Soviet Union
into a totalitarian tyranny
The spread of spiritual emptiness in the
outwardly prosperous & affluent societies
of Western Europe and the USA
Cultural Roots
Mimus()Greek/Latin Drama)
Ritual Drama
Allegorical & Symbolic Drama (e.g. Morality
Plays or autos Sacramental)
Dream & Nightmare Literature
Tradition of Fools: Mad scenes in Drama (e.g.
Shakespeare’s tragedies)
Pantomime & Music Hall
Nonsense poetry
Commedia dell’arte
No Communication
Loss of Meaning > the language is devoid
of meaning
What happens on the stage transcends
and often contradicts the words spoken by
the characters
The characters talk (= use the language
)to fill the emptiness between them
In a universe that seems to be drained of
meaning the pompous & laborious
attempts at an explanation we call
philosophy or politics must appear as
empty chatter
In a world that has become absurd the
theatre of the absurd is the most accurate
reproduction of reality
Martin Esslin (from Absurd Drama)
A well made play.
• The characters are
well observed &
convincingly
motivated
• Dialogue is witty &
logically built up
An Absurdist Play
• The characters are
hardly recognizable
human beings, their
actions are
completely
unmotivated.
• Dialogue seems to
have degenerate into
meaningless babble
Beginning-middleending clearly
recognizable
It is primarily
concerned to tell a
story or elucidate an
intellectual
problem…It can thus
be seen as a
narrative or
discoursive form of
communication
Result :Final
Message
DYNAMIC
It starts at an arbitrary
point & seems to end
as arbitrarily
It is intended to
convey a poetic
image os a complex
pattern of poetic
images; it is above all
a poetic form
It conveys a central
atmosphere
STATIC
The action goes from
point A to point B: we
constantly ask ‘What’s
going to happen next?’
Conditioned by clear ,
comforting beliefs, a
stable scale of values, an
ethical system in full
working conditions
Action :gradual unfolding
of a complex pattern .We
ask ‘What is it that we are
seeing?’
Absurdist playrights no
longer believe in the
possibility of of a neat
resolution: they express a
sense of wonder ,
incomprehension,
despair at the lack of
cohesion and meaning
they find in the world
Politics
Religion
Implicit belief in the
goodness & perfectibility
of people
Unthinking acceptance of
the moral & political
status quo
Implicit idea that the
world does make sense,
reality is secure , all
outlines clear, all ends
apparent
There is no faith in the
existence of a rational
and well ordered universe
Sense of shock at the
absense , the loss of any
such clear & well defined
system of beliefs &
values