PAPER III

Subject: TEATRO INGLÉS S. XIX Y XX

Code: 14227 group: B

NPA: CL46706 Mª JOSEFA GÓMEZ GARCÍA

“THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD”

The origins of the “Theatre of the Absurd” are rooted in the avant-garde experiments in art of the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, it was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the traumatic experience of the horrors of the Second World War, which showed the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness.

“The Theatre of the Absurd” is a term given by Martin Esslin to a number of playwrights mainly written in the 1950s and 1960s.(Slavonic) In these plays the writers expressed the belief that in a godless universe human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Some of the most relevant play writers of the Absurd are Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet (Hutchinson)

One of the most important aspects of absurd drama is its distrust of language as a means of communication.(Op.cit) “The Theatre of the Absurd” constituted first and foremost an 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. By ridiculing conventionalised and stereotyped speech patterns, the “Theatre of the Absurd” tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically. It is the hidden, implied meaning of words that assume primary importance in absurd theatre, over an above what is being actually said. (based on Slavonic)

Absurdism is an idea commonly associated with existentialism.(KathrenaE) Mainly by the influence of Kierkegaard, religion was often described as absurd because it could not be justified on rational principles. A philosophical basis for the modern theatre of the absurd has been established by other existentialists such Sartre, Camus, Jaspers and Marcel which argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that sense, the world must be seen as absurd.(based on KatharenaE)

There is no dramatic conflict in the absurd plays. However frantically characters perform, this only underlines the fact that nothing happens to change their existence. Absurd dramas are lyrical statements, very much like music: they communicate an atmosphere, an experience of archetypal human situations. The Absurd Theatre is a theatre of situation, as against the more conventional theatre of sequential events. It presents a pattern of poetic images. In doing this, it uses visual elements, movement, light.

Unlike conventional theatre, where language rules supreme, in “The Absurd Theatre” language is only one of many components of its multidimensional poetic imagery. 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 clowning. Much of its inspiration comes from silent film and comedy, as well as the tradition of verbal nonsense in early sound film (Laurel and Hardy, W C Fields, the Marx Brothers). It emphasises the importance of objects and visual experience: the role of language is relatively secondary. It owes a debt to European pre-war surrealism: its literary influences include the work of Franz Kafka. “The Theatre of the Absurd” is aiming to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams.(Slavonic)

Writers outside France who show the influence of “The Theatre of the Absurd” include Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard in England; Gunter Grass and Peter Weiss in Germany; Edward Albee, Israel Horovitz and Sam Shepard in the United States.(based on KatharenaE)

Bibliography:

Existentialism and Samuel Beckett, Theatre of the absurd by Katharena Eiermann. http://members.aol.com/KatharenaE/private/Philo/Existentialis... 7-12-2005

The Hutchinson educational encyclopaedia 1999 CD-ROOM