The
“Theatre of the Absurd” is a term used to describe a mid-20th
century theatrical movement comprising the works of a particular coterie
of late Modernist European playwrights. These works are characterized
by a certain sense of existential absurdism with which the writers
sought to underscore the perceived purposelessness and futility of
human life. To this end, the theatre of the absurd defied traditional
audience expectations of dramatic performance through its abnegation
of meaningful dialogue, its repudiation of conventional staging, and
its deconstruction of delineations of time, most notably in its eschewing of temporally ordered plot sequences. Thus, in many respects, the theatre of the
absurd was as much a philosophical formulation as a mode of artistic
expression. Indeed, many of the movement's foremost visionaries were
contemporaries of such existential thinkers as Camus, Sartre, and
Heidegger, and while many of these literary and philosophical minds sought to downplay
the significance of the crosstalk between their two disciplines, the influence of each enterprise upon the other is
indisputable.
In
order to best understand the conceptual framework upon which these
“absurdist” theatrical works rest, it is perhaps necessary to immerse
oneself in their performance. To this end, consider the following
scene from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. (Starting at 3:58)
The play centers around the interaction of two men, Vladimir and
Estragon, who for the entirety of the performance wait for the
appearance of a character named Godot. Not
so surprisingly, Godot never arrives. Here
the two men discuss
the Bible, specifically the gospel's discordant
recounting of Jesus' death on
the cross and
the apparent repentance of
one man crucified alongside him.
While the conversation initially
appears to progress towards a
meaningful conclusion, it becomes clear that whatever significance it
seeks to derive is quickly
discredited by Estragon's assertion that “people are all bloody
ignorant apes.” This sort of dramatic pivot, from a question of
profound Biblical import to a nondescript
remark concerning the irrationality of human existence is typical of
these absurdist works.
It's
important to note that the theatre of the absurd represented the
culmination of a progression of eccentric artistic and literary
movements associated with Modernism as well as predating cultural
climes. Some of the earliest parallels can be drawn with works of
Shakespearean tragicomedy such as Macbeth.
This is reflected in the thematic choices of various absurdist plays
such as Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
and Ionesco's Macbett.
More
directly influential were the works of playwright Alfred Jarry, in
tandem with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements as well as the
writings of such as Gogol and Brecht. Jarry, in particular,
profoundly shaped the absurdist movement via his creation of a
sarcastic, pseudo-scientific branch of philosophy which he deemed
'Pataphysics. The discipline
concerns itself with conceptualizing immaterial scientific phenomena
in a humorous, yet vaguely formal, way. For example, a core
abstraction of 'Pataphysics is that of “Cliname,” a term taken
from the writings of Lucretius and used to describe the “swerving
of atoms.” In his 'Pataphysical treatises, Jarry used the term to
describe his creation of the word “merdre” from the French
“merde,” (i.e. shit). Such was his commitment to the trope, that
he even founded a College de 'Pataphysique, a
society dedicated to spreading his ridiculous musings throughout the
world. And such was Jarry's influence that a number of absurdist
playwrights (Ionesco, for example) ironically joined. Featured
below is Jarry's seminal work, the play Ubu Roi, which
premiered in Paris on December 10th,
1896.
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