The
theatre of the absurd is a term coined by Esslin (1962). It is the production
of the accumulated miserable events that lingered throughout the world at that
time. Having the world war just ended, while announcing another war between the
USSR and the USA which has been conditioned by the threat of nuclear weapons. People have lost hope in life and were expecting the day to come to be the
world's annihilation day. This theatre
was a reflection of several philosophical views. The current essay is to delve into
the nature of philosophies related to this theatre, play characters, plot
organisation, and the used language.
Related philosophies
The
theatre of the absurd was mainly related to existentialism, Dadaism, and
Serialism. Existentialism was the very base on which the theatre of the absurd
was based, since that philosophical approach envisions life as a meaningless
chaos. For Dadaism, it was an irrationality-based sort of art that emerged during the First World War. It impacted the theatre of the absurd, owing to it its major aspect of irrationality. In the deterministic side of this theatre, there
is a strong relation between it and serialism in art, as it follows predetermined
modules. This is the same as what the theatre of the absurd does by following a repetitive determined
process. Additionally, there comes the myth of Sisyphus. The latter was punished
by the gods to keep rolling a rock up the hill, and thereafter throwing it back
when reaching the top and so on endlessly. That is exactly what the absurdist
playwrights implemented in shaping their plots.
Characters
Characters
in the theatre of the absurd are flat. This implies that they do not change, neither
do they develop new events. They usually repeat the same words all over
their dialogue or monologue. Misunderstanding also is what marks their communication the
most. Empirically, characters are usually formed by the absurdist playwrights
as pairs, two males or one male and a female.
Plot
The
plot in the Theatre of the Absurd is that one stated since the beginning. In absurdist
plays, the end cannot be distinguished from the beginning. There might be a
kind of ambiguous events marking the story, but nobody seems to know anything
about them, not even the characters. The previous feature is to reflect emptiness,
nothingness, and absurdism.
Language
The
absurdists view language as trite. For them, language can never be reliable in
conveying messages. Hence, in their plays, they use language as if they are
only spitting words. No words are chosen carefully. The language in their plays
mirrors misunderstanding, and incomprehension, and is full of clichés as well
as nonsense. Language in this theatre is stripped from its denotative function.
Conclusion
The theatre of the absurd was a reaction to a world that was not worth
living. The Second World War and its rameficatiosn have left nothing to be
felt but despair and hopelessness. Antonin Artaud with his ‘’Theatre of Cruelty
‘’, has escaped reality to an empty world as he saw. Same as other
absurdist playwrights like Martin Esslin, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, etc.