THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD

Theatre of the absurd came about as a reaction of the Second World War. The existential philosophy was taken as its root and was combined with dramatic elements to create a style of theatre which presented a world which could not be logically explained.

This genre of theatre took quite some time to catch on because its playwriting techniques seemed to be illogical to the theatre world. The scenary was often unrecognizable and making matters worse, the dialogue never drew any sense.

The Theatre of the Absurd is a phrase used in reference to particular plays written by number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved form their work. However, this genre of theatre accomplished its eventual popularity when World War II highlighted the ultimate precariousness of human life. The expression “Theatre of the Absurd” has been criticized by some writers and one also finds the expressions “Anti-Theatre” and “New theatre”. Http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/sek5/classpage.html

The absurd plays by Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter and others all share the view that man is inhabiting a universe with which he is out of key. Its meaning is indecipherable and his place within it is without purpose.

The Theatre of the Absurd also seems to have been a reaction to the disappearance of the religious dimension form contemporary life. The Absurd can be seen as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age.

As a result, absurd plays assumed a highly unusual, innovative form, directly aiming to startle the viewer, shaking him out of this comfortable, it was no longer possible to keep using such traditional art forms and standards that had ceased being convincing and lost their validity. The Theatre of the Absurd openly rebelled against conventional theatre. Indeed, it was anti-theater. Http://honors.montana.edu./oelks/TC/Absurd.html

One of the most important aspects of absurd drama was its distrust of language as a means of communication. Language had become a vehicle of conventionalised, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Words failed to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The Theatre of the Absurd constituted first and foremost and onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which is distorts, parodies and breaks down. Objects are much more important than language in absurd theatre: what happens transcends what is being said about it. The Theatre of the Absurd strove to communicate an undissolved totality of perception.

According to Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom human being can enjoy when they are able to abandon the straitjacket of logic. Their individual identity is defined by language, having a name is the source of our separateness. Http://en.wilkipedia.org/wiki/Theare_of_the_Absurd

There is no dramatic conflicting the absurd plays. Absurd dramas are lyrical statements, very much like music: they communicate an atmosphere an experience of archetypal human situations.

The Theatre of the Absurd is totally lyrical theatre which uses abstract scenic effects, many of which have been taken over and modified from the popular theatre arts: mime, ballet, acrobatics, conjuring, music-hall clawing. It emphasises the importance of objects and visual experience: the role of language is relatively secondary. The Theatre of the Absurd is aiming to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical, vision, closely related to the world of dreams. Http://litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=12

Now when we talk about theatre we talk about the reality.