Absurdist’s REPRESENTATIVE WORKS :

A long one-act play by Edward Albee, The American Dream (1961) targets the artificial values of family
life and features plot events that are not only absurd, but grotesque.

Samuel Beckett's one-act play Endgame (1957), which is not as famous as Waiting for Godot, is an even
darker work dealing with the master/slave relationship

In Jean Genet's second play, The Maids (1947), the writer for the first time explores a world outside the
prison, a setting he used in all of his earlier works.

Characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd

Listed below are some characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd. Not all plays will include all these
elements. You should determine the extent to which a playwright uses each of these techniques and
decide how it relates to the appearance/reality theme which is common is Absurdist plays.

• Investigation of the relativity of truth

•Futility

•Humanity’s vain struggle against fate

•Inadequacy of communication

•Use of small talk and understatement

• Non-sequiturs

•Instability of characters/ lack of definite characterization

 Lack of definite plot structure

•World bent on destruction

•The absurdity of attempting to control one’s fate