Drama

Fourth year (senior students)

By: Hayder Gebreen
Theater of the Absurd: Definition and Background

Theater of the Absurd refers to a literary movement in drama popular throughout European
countries from the 1940s to approximately 1989. Absurdist playwrights adhered to the theories of
French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus, in particular his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, published
in 1942. In this essay, Camus introduced his Philosophy of the Absurd, in which he argues that
man's quest for meaning and truth is a futile endeavor; he compares man's struggle to understand the
world and the meaning of life to Sisyphus, a famous figure in Greek Mythology condemned to an
existence of rolling a heavy stone up a mountain only to watch it roll to the bottom.
Critics believe that Theater of the Absurd arose as a movement from the doubts and fears
surrounding World War II and what many people saw as the degeneration of traditional moral and
political values. The movement flourished in France, Germany, and England, as well as in
Scandinavian countries. Several of the founding works of the movement include Jean Genet's The
Maids (1947), Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (1950), Arthur Adamov's Ping-Pong (1955), and
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953). Beckett's death in 1989 is said to mark the close of the
movement's popularity.
In the first edition of The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin saw the work of these playwrights as giving
artistic meaning to Albert Camus's philosophy that life is inherently without meaning. There are
four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco,
and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth playwright, Harold Pinter—although
each of these writers has unique preoccupations and characteristics that go beyond the term
"absurd." Other writers associated with this group by critics include Edward Albee and many
others.
Characteristics of the Theater of the Absurd
Plays categorized in this movement typically represent human existence as nonsensical and often
chaotic. Absurdist works rarely follow a clear plot, and what action occurs serves only to heighten
the sense that characters (and human beings in general) are mere victims of unknown, arbitrary
forces beyond their control. Dialogue is often redundant, setting and passage of time within the play
unclear, and characters express frustration with deep, philosophical questions, such as the meaning
of life and death and the existence of God.
The Theatre of the Absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all of the associated
theatrical conventions. Time, place and identity are ambiguous and fluid, and even basic causality
frequently breaks down. Meaningless plots, repetitive or nonsensical dialogue and dramatic non-
sequiturs are often used to create dream-like, or even nightmare-like moods. There is a fine line,
however, between the careful and artful use of chaos and non-realistic elements and true,
meaningless chaos.
Characteristics of Style: Theatre of the Absurd
Forms and Conventions
Theory: Script considerations Language, rhythm, · Language is often fragmented Non-
sequitors
· Word play–new meaning or double
meaning
· Pauses
Audience relationship · Audience often alienated, teased,
 Drama
Fourth year (senior students)
By: Hayder Gebreen
puzzled, and disturbed.
· Audience questions existence and
absurdity of life
Play structure · Plot may be illogical
· Often no resolution at the end
· Relationships are nebulous and audience
wonders about the characters’
relationships
· Juxtaposition of contradictory elements,
e.g., friends who destroy each other.
· Plot is both comic and tragic – two
aspects of the same situation.
Playwright’s Intention · Intends to disturb and surprise by
creating a new unpredictable form
· Intends to shatter preconceived notions
of theatre conventions
Creation: Acting Requirements Types of · Range from clowns to realistic
Characters Vocal Requirements Pitch, Pace, characters
Volume · Since the dialogue is sometimes
illogical, it is critical that the actors speak
very clearly
Physical Requirements: Gesture, Movement, · Contrasts of extremes are often
Pace employed in characterization and pace
· Pauses are used to heighten tensions

Modern drama, which developed around the turn of the twentieth century, focused on alienation
and disconnection. These themes can be seen in some of the most famous plays of playwrights such
as Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and Eugene O'Neill.
A New Drama: Drama, literature that is written to be performed on the stage, is a form that goes
back to the ancient Greeks and includes such writers as Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Christopher
Marlowe. However, it is a form that tends to go in and out of fashion depending on the availability
of theaters and audiences.
After a period of being dormant for much of the nineteenth century, drama made a comeback in the
last decades of the century and the early decades of the twentieth century, thanks to writers like
Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and Eugene O'Neill. Though these writers were very different,
their work shared characteristics that were representative of a new form of drama known as modern
drama.
Unlike the earlier drama of Shakespeare and Sophocles, modern drama tended to focus not on kings
and heroes, but instead on ordinary people dealing with everyday problems. And like much of the
literature of this period, which expressed reactions to rapid social change and cataclysmic events
like World War I, it often dealt with the sense of alienation and disconnectedness that average
people felt in this period.
Sources: Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 3rd ed. (New York: Vintage [Knopf], 2004). (Subsequent
references to this ed. appear within parentheses in the text.)
https://study.com/academy/lesson/modern-drama-definition-examples.html