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The term “Theatre of the Absurd” was coined by Martin Esslin in his 1962 book by that title , it refers to a set of plays written primarily in France from the mid-1940s through the 1950s. In these plays, the dramatists used illogical situations, unconventional dialogue and minimal plots to express the apparent absurdity of human existence. There existed no formal “absurdist movement” in the theatre. Dramatists whose works fell under the category had a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose in life and to control its fate.
The existential philosopher, Albert Camus, and other philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre used the term absurdto express their inability to find any rational explanation for human life. The dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and 1960s have been referred to as the “Theatre of the Absurd”. This was so because they essentially subscribed to the theory proposed by Albert Camus, in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
The works of well-known dramatists such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter and a few others have been classified under the “Absurd” Theatre. A British scholar Martin Esslin, in his critical study of Samuel Beckett and French playwrights Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet and Arthur Adamov, first used the term “Theatre of the Absurd”.
Since the ideas dictated the structure of the plays, such playwrights did away with logical structures such as those exist in conventional theatre. Dramatic action, as conventionally associated with theatre and plays is in small doses, although the players continue to perform. It is one way of conveying that whatever they did, nothing will change their existence or fate. For instance, there is no specific storyline or plot in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.The play revolves around two tramps, who are apparently lost and who are filling their days waiting for somebody called Godot. Who was Godot, when he would come and whether he would come at all are issues to which they have no answer. The absurdity of life and living is subtly brought out.
Theatrical Features
Plays within this group are absurd in that they focus not on logical acts, realistic occurrences, or traditional character development; they, instead, focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical . The theme of incomprehensibility is coupled with the inadequacy of language to form meaningful human connections.
· Characters
The characters in Absurdist drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate. Many characters appear as automatons stuck in routines speaking only in cliché .Characters are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types.
The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehensible. Many of Pinter's plays, for example, feature characters trapped in an enclosed space menaced by some force the character can't understand. Pinter's first play was The Room – in which the main character, Rose, is menaced by Riley who invades her safe space though the actual source of menace remains a mystery – and this theme of characters in a safe space menaced by an outside force is repeated in many of his later works (perhaps most famously in The Birthday Party). Characters in Absurdist drama may also face the chaos of a world that science and logic have abandoned. The plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the "pseudocouple". The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence . one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character .The relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play .
· Language
Despite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogue in Absurdist plays is naturalistic. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichés–when words appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating misunderstanding among the characters, making the Theatre of the Absurd distinctive. Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness.
Distinctively Absurdist language will range from meaningless clichés to Vaudeville-style word play to meaningless nonsense. The Bald Soprano, for example, was inspired by a language book in which characters would exchange empty clichés that never ultimately amounted to true communication or true connection. Likewise, the characters in The Bald Soprano–like many other Absurdist characters–go through routine dialogue full of clichés without actually communicating anything substantive or making a human connection. In other cases, the dialogue is purposefully elliptical; the language of Absurdist Theater becomes secondary to the poetry of the concrete and objectified images of the stage. Many of Beckett's plays devalue language for the sake of the striking tableau. Harold Pinter–famous for his "Pinter pause"–presents more subtly elliptical dialogue; often the primary things characters should address is replaced by ellipsis or dashes. The following exchange between Aston and Davies in The Caretaker is typical of Pinter:
ASTON. More or less exactly what you...
DAVIES. That's it ... that's what I'm getting at is ... I mean, what sort of jobs ... (Pause.)
ASTON. Well, there's things like the stairs ... and the ... the bells ...
Much of the dialogue in Absurdist drama reflects this kind of evasiveness and inability to make a connection. When language that is apparently nonsensical appears, it also demonstrates this disconnection. It can be used for comic effect .
· Plot
Traditional plot structures are rarely a consideration in The Theatre of the Absurd. Plots can consist of the absurd repetition of cliché and routine. Often there is a menacing outside force that remains a mystery; in The Birthday Party, for example, Goldberg and McCann confront Stanley, torture him with absurd questions, and drag him off at the end, but it is never revealed why.
Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and unresolved mysteries are central features in many Absurdist plots: for example, in The Chairs an old couple welcomes a large number of guests to their home, but these guests are invisible so all we see is empty chairs, a representation of their absence. In many of Beckett's later plays, most features are stripped away and what's left is a minimalistic tableau: a woman walking slowly back and forth in Footfalls, for example, or in Breath only a junk heap on stage and the sounds of breathing.
The plot may also revolve around an unexplained metamorphosis, a supernatural change, or a shift in the laws of physics. For example, in Ionesco's Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It, a couple must deal with a corpse that is steadily growing larger and larger; Ionesco never fully reveals the identity of the corpse, how this person died, or why it's continually growing, but the corpse ultimately – and, again, without explanation – floats away. In Jean Tardieu's "The Keyhole" a lover watches a woman through a keyhole as she removes her clothes and then her flesh.
Like Pirandello, many Absurdists use meta-theatrical techniques to explore role fulfillment, fate, and the theatricality of theatre. This is true for many of Genet's plays: for example, in The Maids, two maids pretend to be their masters; in The Balcony brothel patrons take on elevated positions in role-playing games, but the line between theatre and reality starts to blur. Another complex example of this is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: it's a play about two minor characters in Hamlet; these characters, in turn, have various encounters with the players who perform The Mousetrap, the play-with-in-the-play in Hamlet. In Stoppard's Travesties, James Joyce and Tristin Tzara slip in and out of the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest
Plots are frequently cyclical : for example, Endgame begins where the play ended – at the beginning of the play, Clov says, "Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished" – and themes of cycle, routine, and repetition are explored throughout.
Playwrights of the Absurd
There are many playwrights whose works could be described as absurd; they include such writers as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter. Within their plays they explore such ideas as the state of existence, the questionable presence of God, the unreliability of language, and the concept of time.
Nearly all these concepts are present in the plays of Samuel Beckett. In his play Waiting for Godot Beckett’s characters, like Sisyphus, are engaged in a fruitless task; they are to wait for an indeterminable amount of time for the mysterious Godot. They fear silence and void and so fill it with seemingly meaningless chat. Beckett uses repetition to highlight the ceaseless circularity of life and his characters throw doubt on the reliability of memory, language and of existence itself.
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