MÓNICA PANADERO
SAYAS
Teatro Inglés
Siglos XIX y XX
Grupo B
PAPER 3
THEATRE OF
THE ABSURD
The
theatre of the absurd represents one of the great currents of the
post-war period. It is a term used by Martin Esslin to classify
to American and European dramatists in the
decade
of 1950.
This
current is reflected in plays of authors like Samuel Beckett,
Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker or Eugen Ionesco. Their
representative plays are The Dumb Waiter, The
Kitchen,
and Waiting For Godot among other.
The
roots of this current are in films of Charles Chaplin, Stan
Lauren, the brothers Marx taking as reference the absurd thing of
the life. There is a great influence exerted in the theatre of
the absurd by the Eastern theatre. Authors like Beckett, Wesker,
Pinter or Ionesco expressed by means of their plays a negative
reaction against the Western theatre and were critical with the
American realist and the naturalist
Between
the main characteristics we found the lack of the sense of the
existence, the inner emptiness of the people, the disarticulation
of language and the lack of
communication.
These dramatists disassembled the structures of language, the
logic and
the
conscience. The belief that the world has sense is replaced by a
world where the
words
or actions are contradictory. Each play has its logic that can be
sad as in
Waiting
For Godot, pathetic, distressing, humorous, humiliating or
violent. All it
affects
three important areas: characters, the plot and the
objects.
The
characters can change sex or personality, all they will begin
having civil state, family or work but they ended up losing
everything, other times these characters will appearance like
strange characters.
The
plot often is circulate and it doesn’t go
anywhere.
The
objects can be so important that they can get to expel to
character as Ionesco’s play
or
can be reduced to the minimum to emphasize to character as it
happens with Beckett.
The
authors are few who vindicate for their theatre the qualifying of
“absurd”. The before named authors can add to few more
who copy exactly the dramatic structures. This current has its
apogee between 1950 and 1960 after these decades begin to be
tolerated by the bourgeoisie since the theatre of absurd is
considered as the “anti-
theatre”
so was a new form to express.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
• Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot. London. Faber and Faber. 1965
• Wesker, Arnold. The Kitchen. London. Faber and Faber. 1957
• Pinter,
Harold. The Dumb Waiter.
• Pinter,
Harold. The Collection.
• Pinter,
Harold. Betrayal.
• Pinter,
Harold. Ashes to Ashes.
• Dofman,
Ariel, L. Howard Quackenbush and Martien Esslin. Theatre of the
Absurd. Dec 2005. http://es.wikipe
dia.org/wiki/Teatro_del_absurdo
• Theatre of
the Absurd. Dec 2005. http://www.literaturyhistory.c
om
• http://www.samuel-
beckett.net/speople.html; This
article is provided by and copyright to ©The Literary
Encyclopedia at www.LitEncyc.com.