THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

The following article by Jerome P. Crabb was originally published on this web site on September 3, 2006.

The Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined by Hungarian-born critic Martin Esslin, who made it the
title of his 1962 book on the subject. The term refers to a particular type of play which first became
popular during the 1950s and 1960s and which presented on stage the philosophy articulated by
French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he defines the
human condition as basically meaningless. Camus 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 ultimately be seen as absurd.
Esslin regarded the term Theatre of the Absurd merely as a "device" by which he meant to bring
attention to certain fundamental traits discernible in the works of a range of playwrights. The
playwrights loosely grouped under the label of the absurd attempt to convey their sense of
bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an inexplicable universe. According to Esslin, the
five defining playwrights of the movement are Eugne Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur
Adamov, and Harold Pinter, although these writers were not always comfortable with the label and
sometimes preferred to use terms such as "Anti-Theater" or "New Theater". Other playwrights
associated with this type of theatre include Tom Stoppard, Arthur Kopit, Friedrich Drrenmatt,
Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, N.F. Simpson, Boris Vian, Peter Weiss, Vaclav Havel, and Jean
Tardieu.
Although the Theatre of the Absurd is often traced back to avant-garde experiments of the 1920s
and 1930s, its roots, in actuality, date back much further. Absurd elements first made their
appearance shortly after the rise of Greek drama, in the wild humor and buffoonery of Old Comedy
and the plays of Aristophanes in particular. They were further developed in the late classical period
by Lucian, Petronius and Apuleius, in Menippean satire, a tradition of carnivalistic literature,
depicting a world upside down. The morality plays of the Middle Ages may be considered a
precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd, depicting everyman-type characters dealing with allegorical
and sometimes existential problems. This tradition would carry over into the Baroque allegorical
drama of Elizabethan times, when dramatists such as John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, Jakob
Biederman and Calderon would depict the world in mythological archetypes. During the nineteenth
century, absurd elements may be noted in certain plays by Ibsen and, more obviously, Strindberg,
but the acknowledged predecessor of what would come to be called the Theatre of the Absurd
is Alfred Jarry's "monstrous puppet-play" Ubu Roi(1896) which presents a mythical, grotesque
figure, set amidst a world of archetypal images. Ubu Roi is a caricature, a terrifying image of the
animal nature of man and his cruelty. In the 1920s and 1930s, the surrealists expanded on Jarrys
experiments, basing much of their artistic theory on the teachings of Freud and his emphasis on the
role of the subconscious mind which they acknowledged as a great, positive healing force. Their
intention was to do away with art as a mere imitation of surface reality, instead demanding that it
should be more real than reality and deal with essences rather than appearances. The Theatre of
the Absurd was also anticipated in the dream novels of James Joyce and Franz Kafka who created
archetypes by delving into their own subconscious and exploring the universal, collective
significance of their own private obsessions. Silent film and comedy, as well as the tradition of
verbal nonsense in the early sound films of Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, and the Marx Brothers
would also contribute to the development of the Theatre of the Absurd, as did the verbal "nonsense"
of Franois Rabelais, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Christian Morgernstern. But it would take a
catastrophic world event to actually bring about the birth of the new movement.
World War II was the catalyst that finally brought the Theatre of the Absurd to life. The global nature

of this conflict and the resulting trauma of living under threat of nuclear annihilation put into stark
perspective the essential precariousness of human life. Suddenly, one did not need to be an
abstract thinker in order to be able to reflect upon absurdity: the experience of absurdity became
part of the average person's daily existence. During this period, a prophet of the absurd
appeared. Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) rejected realism in the theatre, calling for a return to myth
and magic and to the exposure of the deepest conflicts within the human mind. He demanded a
theatre that would produce collective archetypes and create a modern mythology. It was no longer
possible, he insisted, to keep using traditional art forms and standards that had ceased being
convincing and lost their validity. Although he would not live to see its development, The Theatre of
the Absurd is precisely the new theatre that Artaud was dreaming of. It openly rebelled against
conventional theatre. It was, as Ionesco called it anti-theatre. It was surreal, illogical, conflictless
and plotless. The dialogue often seemed to be complete gibberish. And, not surprisingly, the publics
first reaction to this new theatre was incomprehension and rejection.
The most famous, and most controversial, absurdist play is probably Samuel Becketts Waiting for
Godot. The characters of the play are strange caricatures who have difficulty communicating the
simplest of concepts to one another as they bide their time awaiting the arrival of Godot. The
language they use is often ludicrous, and following the cyclical patter, the play seems to end in
precisely the same condition it began, with no real change having occurred. In fact, it is sometimes
referred to as the play where nothing happens. Its detractors count this a fatal flaw and often turn
red in the face fomenting on its inadequacies. It is mere gibberish, they cry, eyes nearly bulging out
of their head--a prank on the audience disguised as a play. The plays supporters, on the other
hand, describe it is an accurate parable on the human condition in which the more things change,
the more they are the same. Change, they argue, is only an illusion. In 1955, the famous character
actor Robert Morley predicted that the success of Waiting for Godot meant the end of theatre as
we know it. His generation may have gloomily accepted this prediction, but the younger generation
embraced it. They were ready for something newsomething that would move beyond the old
stereotypes and reflect their increasingly complex understanding of existence.
Whereas traditional theatre attempts to create a photographic representation of life as we see it, the
Theatre of the Absurd aims to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely
related to the world of dreams. The focal point of these dreams is often man's fundamental
bewilderment and confusion, stemming from the fact that he has no answers to the basic existential
questions: why we are alive, why we have to die, why there is injustice and suffering. Ionesco
defined the absurdist everyman as Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental
roots lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless. The Theatre of the Absurd, in a
sense, attempts to reestablish mans communion with the universe. Dr. Jan Culik writes, Absurd
Theatre can be seen as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age, by
making man aware of the ultimate realities of his condition, by instilling in him again the lost sense
of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking
man out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is
mystical experience in confronting the limits of human condition.
One of the most important aspects of absurd drama is its distrust of language as a means of
communication. Language, it seems to say, has become nothing but a vehicle for conventionalized,
stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Dr. Culik explains, 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 an onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and
insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichs, slogans
and technical jargon, which it 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.
Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the logically impossible. According to

Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom we can enjoy when we are able to abandon the
straitjacket of logic. As Dr. Culik points out, Rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the
superficial aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a glimpse of the infinite.
What, then, has become of this wonderful new theatrethis movement that produced some of the
most exciting and original dramatic works of the twentieth century? Conventional wisdom, perhaps,
suggests that the Theatre of the Absurd was a product of a very specific point in time and, because
that time has passed, it has gone the way of the dinosaur. In a revised edition of his seminal work,
Martin Esslin disagrees: Everyartistic movement or style has at one time or another been the
prevailing fashion. It if was no more than that, it disappeared without a trace. If it had a genuine
content, if it contributed to an enlargement of human perception, if it created new modes of human
expression, if it opened up new areas of experience, however, it was bound to be absorbed into the
main stream of development. And this is what happened with the Theatre of the Absurd which, apart
from having been in fashion, undoubtedly was a genuine contribution to the permanent vocabulary
of dramatic expression. [it] is being absorbed into the mainstream of the tradition from which it
had never been entirely absent The playwrights of the post-Absurdist era have at their disposal,
then, a uniquely enriched vocabulary of dramatic technique. They can use these devices freely,
separately and in infinite variety of combinations with those bequeathed to them by other dramatic
conventions of the past. In a New York Times piece entitled Which Theatre is the Absurd One?,
Edward Albee agrees with Esslins final analysis, writing, For just as it is true that our response to
color and form was forever altered once the impressionist painters put their minds to canvas, it is
just as true that the playwrights of The Theatre of the Absurd have forever altered our response to
the theatre.
The Theatre of the Absurd will always have its detractors. But it lives on.

Theatre of the Absurd: Essential Reading List- A must-read list for anyone interested in
absurdist theatre.

A Diatribe in Favor of the Theatre of the Absurd - Just that!

Three Plays of the Absurd - In this collection of plays, Walter Wykes creates a series of
modern myths, tapping into something in the strata of the subconscious, through ritualism
and rich, poetic language. The worlds he creates are brand new and hilarious, yet each
contains an ancient horror we all know and cannot escape and have never been able to
hang one definitive word on.

Back to 20th Century Theatre