It is the generic term that was sign by the critic Martin Esslin in 1962 to classify some playwrights who wrote in the 1950s whose work is considered like a reaction against the traditional concepts of the occidental theatre.
Esslin considered that these playwrights gave artistic expression to the phylosophical concept of Albert Camus that life is inherentment absurd. This novelist, essayist and playwright said that humanity had to resign oneself to recognise that a completely rational explanation of the universe was beyond their reach, in this sense the world should be seen as absurd.(“theatre of the absurd”, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2002)
The most representative authors of this term are Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Fernando Arrabal...
And the most representative plays are “Waiting for Godot” and “The bald singer”. In the first play there are two characters waiting for somebody who doesn´t come, Godot. And the second play is a satire of every-day aspects, with a singer that isn´t bald, who isn´t a singer and who doesn´t appear in any scene.( Wikipedia. Founder Jimmy Wales.last modify 5-1-2006. 11-1-06.www.wikipedia.org)
The theatre of the absurd isn´t a movement and the authors are in a heterogeneous panorama. The aspects that they have in common are the rejection of the realist theatre, the repetitive dialoge, the plot that seem to lack of meaning...
A topic in this kind of theatre is the fight of the characters to express oneself and the impossibility to do it.
In this theatre the things that happen in the stage are often contrary to the words that the characters say.
In Gonzalo Cuellar´s article (in “
With the question: “what does the theatre serve for?” Ionesco answers: “for nothing, the theatre is useless, but its uselessness is indispensable”. “The theatre will have a revival because is men´s necessity”.
The journalist Jorge Z. Humaña asks himself in an article (in “Escáner Cultural
magazine”, number 18, date 12-6-2000)
“why does anything exist that is written in a modern language, by a modern person, with a good syntax, good ortography, could be considered absurd?, Isn´t it absurd the life itself?”
According to his oppinion, when we go to the theatre, we want to see something that coincides in our sense and understanding of the life. We want everything to havea logical explanation and that is similar with what we think.
This journalist expalins (in “Escáner Cultural magazine”, number 18, date 12-6-2000)
magazine”, number 18, date 12-6-2000)
to us what is what this kind of theatre
collect with an example: “One day we see a beggar and a lawyer and they are
talking.
If we know that the lawyer has travelled round the world, can the beggar say “you don´t know the world?”, and he says that he knows the world if he doesn´t move from this place.”
Later Jorge Z. Humaña explains (in “Escáner Cultural magazine”, number 18, date 12-
6-2000)
magazine”, number 18, date 12-6-2000)
: “the theatre of the absurd tries to collect all these worries and questions, but it doesn´t give answers, it lets you to worry about the answer and the interpretation, you are who have to understand that what you saw, is as absurd as the life and if you give a coin to the beggar, you don´t give a solution to his problem and your problem”
In this article we can find Humaña´s opinion about the period of the absurdism: “the absurdism hasn´t got any period, it is true that its representation is recent but its existence began the day that God threw out Adam and Eve from the paradise because of eating an apple”.