The Theatre of the AbsurdIn 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered at a tiny avant-garde theatre in Paris; within five years, it had been translated into more than twenty languages and seen by more than a million spectators. Its startling popularity marked the emergence of a new type of theatre whose proponents—Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and others—shattered dramatic conventions and paid scant attention to psychological realism, while highlighting their characters’ inability to understand one another. In 1961, Martin Esslin gave a name to the phenomenon in his groundbreaking study of these playwrights who dramatized the absurdity at the core of the human condition. Over four decades after its initial publication, Esslin’s landmark book has lost none of its freshness. The questions these dramatists raise about the struggle for meaning in a purposeless world are still as incisive and necessary today as they were when Beckett’s tramps first waited beneath a dying tree on a lonely country road for a mysterious benefactor who would never show. Authoritative, engaging, and eminently readable, The Theatre of the Absurd is nothing short of a classic: vital reading for anyone with an interest in the theatre. |
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 9 |
The absurdity of the Absurd | 19 |
The search for the self | 29 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Absurd action actors Adamov Amédée appears Arthur Adamov artistic audience avant-garde basic Beckett become Bérenger Boris Vian Brecht Cahiers characters clearly Clov Collège de Pataphysique comedy comic commedia dell'arte communicate confronted convention critics dead death dialogue dramatic dramatists dream elements Endgame Estragon Eugène Ionesco experience expression fact fantasy father feeling finally French Genet girl grotesque Hamm hero human condition ibid illusions Ionesco Jacques Jarry Jean-Louis Barrault Joyce Kenneth Tynan killed Krapp's Last Tape language lives logic London Madeleine maid means merely mother mysterious nightmare nonsense Paris parody performed Pinter playwright poet poetic image poetry political Pozzo present psychological realistic reality ritual Sartre says scene sense situation social stage story Surrealist symbol Taranne Tardieu's theatre theme tradition trans truth Tueur Sans Gages turn Tynan victim Victims of Duty Vladimir Waiting for Godot wants wife woman words writing