Absurd Drama - Martin Esslin

Introduction to "Absurd Drama" (Penguin Books, 196 ! 'The Theatre of the Absurd' has become a catch-phrase, much used and much abused. What does it stand for? And how can such a label be justified? Perhaps it will be best to attempt to answer the second question first. There is no organised mo ement, no school of artists, who claim the label for themsel es. A good man! pla!wrights who ha e been classed under this label, when as"ed if the! belong to the Theatre of the Absurd, will indignantl! repl! that the! belong to no such mo ement - and quite rightl! so. #or each of the pla!wrights concerned see"s to e$press no more and no less his own personal ision of the world. %et critical concepts of this "ind are useful when new modes of e$pression, new con entions of art arise. When the pla!s of &onesco, 'ec"ett, (enet, and Adamo first appeared on the stage the! pu))led and outraged most critics as well audiences. And no wonder. These pla!s flout all the standards b! which drama has been judged for man! centuries* the! must therefore appear as a pro ocation to people who ha e come into the theatre e$pecting to find what the! would recogni)e as a well-made pla!. A well-made pla! is e$pected to present characters that are well-obser ed and con incingl! moti ated+ these pla!s often contain hardl! an! recogni)able human beings and present completel! unmoti ated actions. A well-made pla! is e$pected to entertain b! the dingdong of witt! and logicall! built-up dialogue+ in some of these pla!s dialogue seems to ha e degenerated into meaningless babble. A well-made pla! is e$pected to ha e a beginning, a middle, and a neatl! tied-up ending+ these pla!s often start at an arbitrar! point and seem to end just as arbitraril!. '! all the traditional standards of of critical appreciation of the drama, these pla!s are not onl! abominabl! bad, the! do not e en deser e the name drama. And !et, strangel! enough, these pla!s ha e worked, the! ha e had an effect, the! ha e e$ercised a fascination of their own in the theatre. At first it was said that this fascination was merel! a succs de scandale, that people floc"ed to see 'ec"ett's Waiting for Godot or &onesco's Bald Primadonna merel! because it had become fashionable to e$press outrage and astonishment about them at parties. 'ut this e$planation clearl! could not appl! to more than one or two pla!s of this "ind. And the success of a whole row of similarl! uncon entional wor"s became more and more manifest. &f the critical touchstones of con entional drama did not appl! to these pla!s, this must surel! ha e been due to a difference in objecti e, the use of different artistic means, to the fact, in short, that these pla!s were both creating and appl!ing a different convention of drama. &t is just as senseless to condemn an abstract painting because it lac"s perspecti e or a recogni)able subject-matter as it is to reject Waiting for Godot because it has no plot to spea" of. &n painting a composition of squares and lines an artist li"e ,ondrian does not want to depict an! object in nature, he does not want to create perspecti e. -imilarl!, in writing Waiting for Godot 'ec"ett did not intend to tell a stor!, he did not want the audience to go home satisfied that the! "new the solution to the problem posed in the pla!. .ence there is no point in reproaching him with not doing what he ne er sought to do* the onl! reasonable course is to tr! and find out what it was that he did intend.

%et, if tac"led directl! most of the pla!wrights in question would refuse to discuss an! theories or objecti es behind their wor". The! would, with perfect justification, point out that the! are concerned with one thing onl!+ to e$press their ision of the world as best the! can, simpl! because, as artists, the! feel an irrepressible urge to do so. This is where the critic can step in. '! describing the wor"s that do not fit into the established con ention, b! bringing out the similarities of approach in a number of more or less ob iousl! related new wor"s, b! anal!sing the nature of their method and their artistic effect, he can tr! to define the framewor" of the new con ention, and b! doing so, can pro ide the standards b! which it will become possible to ha e wor"s in that con ention meaningfull! compared and e aluated. The onus of proof that there is such a con etion in ol ed clearl! lies on the critic, but if he can establish that there are basic similarities in approach, he can argue that these similarities must arise from common factors in the e$perience of the writers concerned. And these common factors must in turn spring from the spiritual climate of our age /which no sensiti e artist can escape0 and also perhaps from a common bac"ground of artistic influences, a similarit! of roots, a shared tradition. A term li"e the Theatre of the Absurd must therefore be understood as a "ind of intellectual shorthand for a comple$ pattern of similarities in approach, method, and con ention, of shared philosophical and artistic premises, whether conscious or subconscious, and of influences from a common store of tradition. A label of this "ind therefore is an aid to understanding, alid onl! in so far as it helps to gain insight into a wor" of art. &t is not a binding classification* it is certainl! not all-embracing or e$clusi e. A pla! ma! contain some elements that can best be understood in the light of such a label, while other elements in the same pla! deri e from and can best be understood in the light of a different con ention. Arthur Adamo , for e$ample, has written a number of pla!s that are prime e$amples of the Theatre of the Absurd. .e now quite openl! and consciousl! rejects this st!le and writes in a different, realistic con ention. 1e ertheless e en his latest pla!s, which are both realistic and sociall! committed, contain some aspects which can still be elucidated in terms of the Theatre of the Absurd /such as the use of s!mbolic interludes, guignols, in his pla! Spring '710. ,oreo er, once a term li"e Theatre of the Absurd is defined and understood, it acquires a certain alue in throwing light on wor"s of pre ious epochs. The Polish critic 2an 3ott, for e$ample, has written a brilliant stud! of King ear in the light of 'ec"ett's !ndgame. And that this was no ain academic e$ercise but a genuine aid to understanding is shown b! the fact that Peter 'roo"'s great production of King ear too" man! of its ideas from 3ott's essa!. What then is the con ention of drama that has now acquired the label of the Theatre of the Absurd? 4et us ta"e one of the pla!s in this olume as a starting point+ &onesco's "m#d#e. A middle-aged husband and wife are shown in a situation which is clearl! not ta"en from real life. The! ha e not left their flat for !ears. The wife earns her li ing b! operating some sort of telephone switchboard* the husband is writing a pla!, but has ne er got be!ond the first few lines. &n the bedroom is a corpse. &t has been there for man! !ears. &t ma! be the corpse of the wife's lo er whom the husband "illed when he found them together, but this is b! no means certain* it ma! also ha e been a burglar, or a stra! isitor. 'ut the oddest thing about it is that it "eeps growing larger and larger* it is suffering from 'geometric progression, the incurable disease of the dead'. And in the

course of the pla! it grows so large that e entuall! an enormous foot bursts from the bedroom into the li ing-room, threatening to dri e Am5d5e and his wife out of their home. All this is wildl! fantastic, !et it is not altogether unfamiliar, for it is not unli"e situations most of us ha e e$perienced at one time or another in dreams and nightmares. &onesco has in fact put a dream situation onto the stage, and in a dream quite clearl! the rules of realistic theatre no longer appl!. 6reams do not de elop logicall!* the! de elop b! association. 6reams do not communicate ideas* the! communicate images. And inded the growing corpse in "m#d#e can best be understood as a poetic image. &t is in the nature both of dreams and poetic imager! that the! are ambiguous and carr! a multitude of meanings at one and the same time, so that it is futile to as" what the image of the growing corpse stands for. 7n the other hand one can sa! that the corpse mig$t e o"e the growing power of past mista"es or past guilt, perhaps the waning of lo e or the death of affection - some e il in an! case that festers and grows worse with time. The image can stand for an! and all of these ideas, and its abilit! to embrace them all gi es it the poetic power it undoubtedl! posseses. 1ot all the pla!s of the Theatre of the Absurd can be described simpl! as dreams /although Adamo 's Professor %aranne in this olume actuall! came to Adamo as a dream, Albee's &oo Stor' is clearl! far more firml! anchored in realit!0 but in all of them the poetic image is the focus of interest. &n other words+ while most pla!s in the traditional con ention are primaril! concerned to tell a stor! or elucidate an intellectual problem, and can thus be seen as a narrati e or discursi e form of communication, the pla!s of the Theatre of the Absurd are primaril! intended to con e! a poetic image or a comple$ pattern of poetic images* the! are abo e all a poetical form. 1arrati e or discursi e thought proceeds in a dialectical manner and must lead to a result or final message* it is therefore d!namic and mo es along a definite line of de elopment. Poetr! is abo e all concerned to con e! its central idea, or atmosphere, or mode of being* it is essentiall! static. This does not mean, howe er, that these pla!s lac" mo ement+ the mo ement in "m#d#e, for instance, is relentless, l!ing as it does in the pressure of the e er-growing corpse. 'ut the situation of the pla! remains static* the mo ement we see is the unfolding of the poetic image. The more ambiguous and comple$ that image, the more intricate and intriguing will be the process of re ealing it. That is wh! a pla! li"e Waiting for Godot can generate considerable suspense and dramatic tension in spite of being a pla! in which literall! not$ing happens, a pla! designed to show that nothing can e er happen in human life. &t is onl! when the last lines ha e been spo"en and the curtain has fallen that we are in a position to grasp the total pattern of the comple$ poetic image we ha e been confronted with. &f, in the traditional pla!, the action goes from point A to point ', and we constantl! as", 'what's going to happen ne$t?', here we ha e an action that consists in the gradual unfolding of a comple$ pattern, and instead we as", 'what is it that we are see"ing? What will the completed image be when we ha e grasped the nature of the pattern?' Thus in Arrabal's %$e %wo !(ecutioners in this olume we realise at the end of the pla! that the theme is the e$ploration of a comple$ image of the mother-son relationship* in Albee's &oo Stor' it is onl! in the last lines of the pla! that the idea of the entire dialogue between 2err! and Peter falls into place, as an image of the difficult! of communication between human beings in our world. Wh! should the emphasis in drama ha e shifted awa! from traditional forms towards

images which, comple$ and suggesti e as the! ma! be, must necessaril! lac" the final clarit! of definition, the neat resolutions we ha e been used to e$pect? 8learl! because the pla!wrights concerned no longer belie e in the possibilit! of such neatness of resolution. The! are indeed chiefl! concerned with e$pressing a sense of wonder, of incomprehension, and at times of despair, at the lac" of cohesion and meaning that the! find in the world. &f the! could belie e in clearl! defined moti ations, acceptable solutions, settlements of conflict in tidil! tied up endings, these dramatists would certainl! not eschew them. 'ut, quite ob iousl!, the! ha e no faith in the e$istence of so rational and well ordered a uni erse. The 'well-made pla!' can thus be seen as conditioned b! clear and comforting beliefs, a stable scale of alues, an ethical s!stem in full wor"ing condition. The s!stem of alues, the world- iew behind the well-made pla! ma! be a religious one or a political one* it ma! be an implicit belief in the goodness and perfectibilit! of men /as in -haw or &bsen0 or it ma! be a mere unthin"ing acceptance of the moral and political status quo /as in most drawing-room comed!0. 'ut whate er it is, the basis of the well-made pla! is the implicit assumption that the world does ma"e sense, that realit! is solid and secure, all outlines clear, all ends apparent. The pla!s that we ha e classed under the label of the Theatre of the Absurd, on the other hand, e$press a sense of shoc" at the absense, the loss of an! such clear and welldefined s!stems of beliefs or alues. There can little doubt that such a sense of disillusionment, such a collapse of all pre iousl! held firm beliefs is a characteristic feature of our own times. The social and spiritual reasons for such a sense of loss of meaning are manifold and comple$+ the waning of religious faith that had started with the 9nlightenment and led 1iet)sche to spea" of the 'death of (od' b! the eighteen-eighties* the brea"down of the liberal faith in ine itable social progress in the wa"e of the #irst World War* the disillusionment with the hopes of radical social re olution as predicted b! ,ar$ after -talin had turned the -o iet :nion into a totalitarian t!rann!* the relapse into barbarism, mass murder, and genocide in the course of .itler's brief rule o er 9urope during the -econd World War* and, in the aftermath of that war, the spread of spiritual emptiness in the outwardl! prosperous and affluent societies of Western 9urope and the :nited -tates. There can be no doubt+ for man! intelligent and sensiti e human beings the world of the mid twentieth centur! $as lost its meaning and has simpl! ceased to ma"e sense. Pre iousl! held certainties ha e dissol ed, the firmest foundations for hope and optimism ha e collapsed. -uddenl! man sees himself faced with a uni erse that is both frightening and illogical - in a word, absurd. All assurances of hope, all e$planations of ultimate meaning ha e suddenl! been unmas"ed as nonsensical illusions, empt! chatter, whistling in the dar". &f we tr! to imagine such a situation in ordinar! life, this might amount to our suddenl! ceasing to understand the con ersation in a room full of people* what made sense at one moment has, at the ne$t, become an obscure babble of oices in a foreign language. At once the comforting, familiar scene would turn into one of nightmare and horror. With the loss of the means of communication we should be compelled to iew that world with the e!es of total outsiders as a succession of frightening images. -uch a sense of loss of meaning must ine itabl! lead to a questioning of the recognised instrument for the communication of meaning+ language. 8onsequentl! the Theatre of the Absurd is to a er! considerable e$tent concerned with a critique of language, an attac" abo e all on fossili)ed forms of language which ha e become de oid of meaning. The con erstaion at the part! which at one moment seemed to be an e$change if

information about the weather, or new boo"s, or the respecti e health of the participants, is suddenl! re ealed as an e$change of mere meaningless banalities. The people tal"ing about the weather had no intention whate er of of reall! e$changing meaningful information on the subject* the! were merel! using language to fill the emptiness between them, to conceal the fact that the! had no desire to tell each other an!thing at all. &n other words, from being a noble instrument of genuine communication language has become a "ind of ballast filling empt! spaces. And equall!, in a uni erse that seems to be drained of meaning, the pompous and laborious attempts at e$planation that we call philosoph! or politics must appear as empt! chatter. &n Waiting for Godot for e$ample 'ec"ett parodies and moc"s the language of philosoph! and science in 4uc"!'s famous speech. .arold Pinter, whose uncann! accurac! in the reproduction of real con ersation among 9nglish people has earned him the reputation of ha ing a tape-recorder built into his memor!, re eals that the bul" of e er!da! con ersation is largel! de oid of logic and sense, is in fact nonsensical. &t is at this point that the Theatre of the Absurd can actuall! coincide with the highest degree of realism. #or if the real con ersation of human beings is in fact absurd and nonsensical, then it is the well-made pla! with its polished logical dialogue that is unrealistic, while the absurdist pla! ma! well be a tape-recorded reproduction of realit!. 7r, in a world that has become absurd, the Theatre of the Absurd is the most realistic comment on, the most accurate reproduction of, realit!. &n its critique of language the Theatre of the Absurd closel! reflects the preoccupation of contemporar! philosoph! with language, its effort to disentangle language, as a genuine instrument for logic and the disco er! of realit!, from the welter of emoti e, illogical usages, the grammatical con entions that ha e, in the past, often been confused with genuine logical relationships. And equall!, in its emphasis on the basic absurdit! of the human condition, on the ban"ruptc! of all closed s!stems of thought with claims to pro ide a total e$planation of realit!, the Theatre of the Absurd has much in common with the e$istential philosoph! of .eidegger, -artre, and 8amus. /&t was in fact 8amus who coined the concept of the Absurd in the sense in which it is used here.0 This is not to sa! that the dramatists of the Absurd are tr!ing to translate contemporar! philosoph! into drama. &t is merel! that philosophers and dramatists respond to the same cultural and spiritual situation and reflect the same preoccupations. %et, howe er contemporar! the Theatre of the Absurd ma! appear it is b! no means the re olutionar! no elt! as which some of its champions, as well as some of its bitterest critics, tend to represent it. &n fact the Theatre of the Absurd can best be understood as a new combination of a number of ancient, e en archaic, traditions of literature and drama. &t is surprising and shoc"ing merel! because of the unusual nature of the combination and the increased emphasis on aspects of drama that, while present in all pla!s, rarel! emerge into the foreground. The ancient traditions combined in a new form in the Theatre of the Absurd are+ the tradition of miming and clowning that goes bac" to the mimus of (reece and ;ome, the commedia dell' arte of ;enaissance &tal!, and such popular forms of theatre as the pantomime or the music-hall in 'ritain* the equall! ancient tradition of nonsense poetr!* the tradition of dream and nightmare literature that also goes bac" to (ree" and ;oman times* allegorical and s!mbolic drama, such as we find it in medie al moralit! pla!s, or in the -panish auto sacramental* the ancient tradition of fools and mad scenes in drama, of which -ha"espeare pro ides a multitude of e$amples* and the e en more ancient

tradition of ritual drama that goes bac" to the er! origins of the theatre where religion and drama were still one. &t is no coincidence that one of the masters of the Theatre of the Absurd, 2ean (enet, regards his pla!s as attempts at recaturing the ritual element in the ,ass itself, which, after all, can be seen as a poetic image of an archet!pal e ent brought to life through a sequence of s!mbolical actions. &t is against this bac"ground that we must see the histor! of the mo ement which culminates in 'ec"ett, &onesco, or (enet. &ts immediate forebears are dramatists li"e -trindberg, who progressed from photographic naturalism to more and more openl! e$pressionist representations of dreams, nightmares, or obsessions in pla!s li"e the G$ost Sonata, )ream Pla', or %o )amascus, and no elists li"e 2ames 2o!ce and 3af"a. A form of drama concerned with dream-li"e imager! and the failure of language was bound to find inspiration also in the silent cinema, with its dream-li"e qualit! and cruel, sometimes nightmare humour. 8harlie 8haplin's little man and 'uster 3eaton's stonefaced stoic are among the openl! ac"nowledged influences of writers li"e 'ec"ett and &onesco. These comedians, after all, deri e from the most ancient traditions of clowning, as do, in the tal"ing cinema, the ,ar$ 'rothers, W. 8. #ields, or 4aurel and .ard!, all clearl! part of the tradition which leads to the Theatre of the Absurd. Another direct and ac"nowledged influence is that of the 6adaists, the surrealists, and the Parisian a ant-garde that deri es from writers li"e Alfred 2arr! /<=>?-<@A>0 and (uillaume Apollinaire /<==A-<@<=0. 2arr!'s *bu +oi, first performed in <=@B, might in fact be called the first modern e$ample of the Theatre of the Absurd. &t is a sa age farce in which monstrous puppets castigate the greed and emptiness of bourgeois societ! through a series of grotesque stage images. Apollinaire's pla! es ,amelles de %iresias /'The 'reasts of Tiresias'0 was the first pla! to be labelled b! its author as 'a surrealist drama'. .ere too the action proceeds through a series of sa agel! grotesque images* the hero, or rather the heroine, Th5rCse-Tiresias changes se$ b! letting her breasts float twards the hea ens in the shape of two to! balloons. 2arr! and Apollinaire were the direct precursors of the 6adaists in -wit)erland, #rance and (erman!. 'recht's earliest pla!s bear the mar"s of the 6adaist influence and can be regarded as earl! e$amples of the Theatre of the Absurd+ -n t$e .ungle of t$e /ities for instance presents the audience with a totall! unmoti ate struggle, a series of poetic images of man fighting a senseless battle with himself. &n #rance the two leading e$ponents of surrealism in drama were Antonin Artaud /<=@B-<@D=0 and ;oger Eitrac /<=@@-<@FG0. Eitrac's pla! 0ictor ou es !nfants au Pouvoir /<@GD0 anticipates &onesco and Arrabal b! showing the world from the point of iew of a nine-!ear-old child of giant si)e and monstrous intelligence. Artaud, who wrote er! little in dramatic form himself, is of immense importance as a theoretician of the new anti-literar! theatre+ he coined the slogan of the 'Theatre of 8ruelt!' for his conception of a theatre designed to shoc" its audience into a full awareness of the horror of the human condition. 2ean-4ouis 'arrault and ;oger 'lin, two of the leading directors of the contemporar! a ant-garde theatre, were pupils of Artaud* Arthur Adamo was among his closest friends. &n its present form the Theatre of the Absurd is a post-war phenomenon. (enet's %$e ,aids had its first performance at the Ath5n5e in Paris in <@D>* &onesco's Bald Primadonna and Adamo 's earliest pla!s were first produced in <@FA* 'ec"ett's Waiting for Godot in <@FG. &t will be noticed that all these first performances too" place in Paris. And Paris certainl! is the fountainhead of the Theatre of the Absurd. %et it is equall! strange and significant that the pla!wrights themsel es are largel! e$iles from other

countries domiciled in Paris+ 'ec"ett /born <@AB0 an Anglo-&rishman who writes in #rench* &onesco /born <@<G0 half-#rench and half-;umanian* Adamo /born <@A=0 a ;usso-Armenian. 7nl! (enet is a #renchman born and bred, but then he is an e$ile in a different sense+ an e$ile from societ! itself, a child abandoned b! his mother, brought up b! foster-parents and drifting from detention centres for ju enile delinquents into an underworld of thie es and male prostitutes, prison and penitentiar!. &t is in the e$perience of the outcast or e$ile that our image of the world seen from the outside assumes a new and added significance+ for the e$ile, from his countr! or from societ!, mo es in a world drained of meaning, sees people in pursuit of objecti es he cannot comprehend, hears them spea" a language that he cannot follow. The e$ile's basic e$perience is the archet!pe and the anticipation of twentieth-centur! man's shoc" at his reali)ation that the world is ceasing to ma"e sense. 7f the dramatists of the Absurd -amuel 'ec"ett is undoubtedl! the profoundest, the greatest poet. Waiting for Godot and !ndgame are certainl! masterpieces* 1app' )a's and Pla', Krapp's ast %ape, and the two "cts wit$out Words /where language has drained awa! altogether0 are brilliant and profound poetic images* and the radio pla!s "ll t$at 2all, !mbers, Words and ,usic, and /ascando ha e an equal enigmatic power. 2ean (enet /born <@<A0 lac"s 'ec"ett's discipline, intellect and erudition, but he too is a poet, endowed with the wellnigh magic power of creating beaut! from e il, corruption and e$crement. &f the e anescence of man in time and the m!ster! of human personalit! and identit! are 'ec"ett's main themes, (enet's chief concern is with the falseness of human pretensions in societ!, the contrast between appearance and realit!, which itself must remain for e er elusi e. &n %$e ,aids we see the ser ants bound in a mi$ture of hatred and erotic dependence to their mistress, re-enacting this lo e-hate in an endless series of ritual games* in %$e Balcon' societ! itself is s!mboli)ed in the image of a brothel pro iding its customers with the illusions of power* and in %$e Blacks we are bac" with the underdog acting out his hatred for his oppressor /which is also a form of lo e0 in an endless ritual of moc"-murder. 2ean Tardieu /born <@A?0 and 'oris Eian /<@GA-F@0 are among the best of the #rench dramatists of the Absurd. Tardieu is an e$perimenter who has s!stematicall! e$plored the possibilities of a theatre that can di orce itself from discursi e speech to the point where language becomes mere musical sound. Eian, a de oted follower of 2arr!, wrote a pla!, %$e !mpire Builders, which shows man fleeing from death and loneliness in the image of a famil! mo ing into e er smaller flats on higher and higher floors of a m!sterious building. &n &tal! 6ino 'u))ati and 9)io d'9rrico, in (erman! (Hnter (rass /"nown as a no elist for his monumental %in )rum0 and Wolfgang .ildesheimer are the main e$ponents of the Theatre of the Absurd. &n 'ritain, 1. #. -impson, 2ames -aunders, 6a id 8ampton, and .arold Pinter might be classed under this heading. 1. #. -impson has clear lin"s with 9nglish nonsense literature, 4ewis 8arroll and 9dward 4ear. 2ames -aunders, particularl! in 3e(t %ime -'ll Sing to 4ou, e$presses in dramatic form the thought of the e$istential philosophers. Pinter, who ac"nowledges 3af"a and 'ec"ett among his literar! heroes, combines realism with an intuition of the absurdit! of human e$istence. &n his later wor" he has shed some of the allegorical s!mbolism of his beginnings, but e en in seemingl! realistic pla!s li"e %$e /ollection there is an absense of moti ation and solution, a multple ambiguit! and a sense of non-communication which transforms

the seemingl! realistic account of humdrum adulter! into a poetic image of the human condition. 'ehind the &ron 8urtain, where socialist realism is the official creed in the theatre, there would appear to be no room for an a ant-garde trend of this t!pe. %et there is one countr! where the influence of the Theatre of the Absurd has produced some astonishingl! successful pla!s+ Poland, an area of relati e artistic freedom since the defeat of the -talinists b! (omul"a in the autumn of <@FB. A strong surrealist influence was present in Poland e en before the war /(ombrowic) and Wit"iewic) are two dramatists who might be regarded as among the most important immediate precursors of the Theatre of the Absurd0 so that the soil was fertile for a de elopment which was further fostered b! the abilit! of drama of this "ind to e$press political comment in a suitabl! oblique form. A number of !oung dramatists, notabl! -lawomir ,ro)e" and Tadeus) ;o)ewic), ha e produced outstandingl! original wor" in the con ention of the Absurd. Three of the pla!wrights represented in this olume are Parisian e$iles. 9ugCne &onesco is undoubtedl! the most fertile and original of the dramatists of the Absurd, and also, in spite of a strea" of clowning and fun for its own sa"e in his wor", one of the most profound. .e is moreo er the most ocal of the dramatists of the Absurd, the onl! one who is prepared to discuss the theoretical foundations of his wor" and to repl! to the attac"s on it from committed left-wing realists. The critique of language and the haunting presense of death are &onesco's chief themes in pla!s li"e %$e Bald Primadonna, %$e esson, %$e /$airs, %$e Killer, +$inoceros, and !(it %$e King. "m#d#e or 1ow to Get +id of -t /<@F?0 is &onesco's first full-length pla! and contains one of his most telling images. &t is also characteristic in its alternation between states of depression and euphoria, leaden oppression and floating on air, an image which reappears through his wor" and which culminates, in this particular pla!, in Am5d5e's floating awa! at the end. Arthur Adamo toda! belongs to the camp against which &onesco directs his harshest polemics, the socialist realists whose organ is the periodical %$#5tre populaire, but he started out as a follower of Artaud, a self-confessed neurotic, an alien in a senseless world. Adamo 's de elopment from one e$treme to the other is a fascinating artistic and ps!chological case histor!, in which Professor %aranne occupies a "e! position. Adamo 's progress can be seen as a process of ps!chological therap! through writing. :nable to face the realit! of the outside world, he started out b! projecting his oppressions and an$ieties on to the stage. 1othing would ha e induced him, he has since confessed, to mention an! element of the real world, such as a place-name in one of his pla!s* he would ha e regarded that as a piece of unspea"able ulgarit!. And !et, when he committed to paper the dream which is now the pla! Professor %aranne, he reali)ed that a real place-name, that of 'elgium, had occurred in the dream. Truthfulness in transcribing the dream thus forced him to compromise on one of his fundamental artistic principles. And from then onwards realit! "ept brea"ing through into his writing in e er more insistent form, until toda! he is a thorough-going realist of the 'rechtian school. That is to sa!, b! writing his obsessions out of his s!stem, Adamo acquired the abilit! to face and to control the objecti e world from which he had withdrawn into neurosis. &t might be argued that the projection of neurotic obsessions is both more interesting and more illuminating in pro iding insights into the dar" side of the human mind than the accurate transcription of historical e ents, and that

therefore Adamo 's absurdist pla!s are more fascinating, more successful than his later efforts. 'ut this is a matter of taste as well as of ideological bias. The fact remains that Professor %aranne and the somewhat more realistic Ping Pong are undoubtedl! among Adamo 's best pla!s. #ernando Arrabal /born <@?G0 is a -paniard who has been li ing in #rance since <@FD and now writes in #rench. .e is an admirer of 'ec"ett, but sees his roots in the surrealist tradition of -pain, a countr! that has alwa!s been rich in fantas! and the grotesque /9l (reco, (o!a0 and that in more recent times has produced such outstanding representati es of the modern mo ement as the painter Picasso /who has himself written two pla!s in an absurdist ein0 and the writers 4orca and Ealle &nclIn. Arrabal's own contribution to the absurdist spectrum is a highl! original one+ his main preoccupation is with the absurdit! of ethical and moral rules. .e loo"s at the world with the incomprehemsion of a child that simpl! cannot understand the logic of con entional moralit!. Thus, in %$e "utomobile Grave'ard there is a prostitute who follows her profession simpl! because religion demands that one be "ind to one's neighbours* how then could she refuse them the ultimate "indness of gi ing herself to them? And similarl! in %$e %wo !(ecutioners the rebel son who objects to the tortures that his mother inflicts on his father is faced with the dilemma of se eral contradictor! moral laws+ obediance to one's father, the human goodness that prompts one to sa e the suffering ictim from his torturers, and the need to honour and obe! one's mother. These moral laws are here in ob ious conflict, as it is the mother who has the father tortured. 8learl! the situation in which se eral moral laws are in contradiction e$poses the absurdit! of the s!stem of alues that accommodates them all. Arrabal refuses to judge* he merel! notes the position and shows that he finds it be!ond his comprehension. 9dward Albee /born <@G=0 is one of the few American e$ponents of the Theatre of the Absurd. An adopted child, he shares with (enet the orphan's sense of loneliness in an alien world* and the image of the dream child which e$ists onl! in the adopti e parents' imagination recurs in a number of his pla!s, notabl! %$e "merican )ream and W$o's "fraid of 0irginia Woolf. The latter, which has earned him an enormous success on 'roadwa!, is undoubtedl! one of the finest American pla!s since the he!da! of 9ugene 7'1eill. &t is a sa age dance of death reminiscent of -trindberg, outwardl! realistic in form, but in fact, as in the case of Pinter's best wor", e$isting on at least two le els apart from the realistic one+ as an allegor! of American societ!, a poetic image of its emptiness and sterilit!, and as a comple$ ritual on the pattern of (enet. %$e &oo Stor' /<@F=0, one of Albee's earliest dramatic entures, has a similar comple$it!+ it is a clinicall! accurate stud! of -chi)ophrenia, an image of man's loneliness and inabilit! to ma"e contact, and also, on the ritual and s!mbolic le el, an act of ritual self-immolation that has curious parallels with 8hrist's atonement. /1ote the names 2err! - 2esus? - and Peter0. The pla!s in this olume, li"e the pla!s of the Theatre of the Absurd in general, present a disillusioned, harsh, and star" picture of the world. Though often couched in the form of e$tra agant fantasies, the! are ne ertheless essentiall! realistic, in the sense that the! ne er shir" the realities of the human mind with its despair, fear and loneliness in an alien and hostile uni erse. There is more human realit! in the grotesquel! e$tra agant images of "m#d#e than in man! far longer pla!s pla!s in a con ention that is a mere photographic cop! of the surface of life. The realism of these pla!s is a ps!chological,

and inner realism* the! e$plaore the human sub-conscious in depth rather than tr!ing to describe the outward appearance of human e$istence. 1or is it quite correct that these pla!s, deepl! pessimistic as the! are, are nothing but an e$pression of utter despair. &t is true that basicall! the Theatre of the Absurd attac"s the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodo$!. &t aims to shoc" its audience out of complacenc!, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. 'ut the challenge behind this message is an!thing but one of despair. &t is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its m!ster! and absurdit!, and to bear it with dignit!, nobl!, responsibl!* precisel! because there are no eas! solutions to the m!steries of e$istence, because ultimatel! man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of eas! solutions, of comforting illusions, ma! be painful, but it lea es behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is wh!, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not pro o"e tears of despair but the laughter of liberation. - ,artin 9sslin, &ntroduction to JPenguin Pla!s - Absurd 6ramaJ /Penguin, <@BF0

6,artin !sslin was born .ulius Peres7len'i on 8 .une 191: into a .ewis$ famil' in Budapest; 1ungar'< "fter t$e collapse of t$e "ustro=1ungarian !mpire at t$e end of t$e Great War; $e became "ustrian b' default and in 19>? t$e famil' moved to 0ienna w$ere $e was educated at t$e Bundesg'mnasium --< -n 19@8 $e went to t$e *niversit' of 0ienna w$ere $e studied P$ilosop$' and !nglis$< 1e also studied directing; acting and dramaturg' at t$e +ein$ardt Seminar of )ramatic "rt< 1e was about to begin $is t$eatrical career in 0ienna w$en t$e 3a7is invaded "ustria< 1e fled; spending a 'ear in Brussels before reac$ing !ngland w$ere $e became a scriptwriter and producer for t$e BB/As !uropean Services in 19B?< 1e wrote numerous radio features on political; social and literar' subCects and in 19DD was appointed assistant $ead of BB/ !uropean Productions; and in 1981; assistant $ead of )rama ESoundF< -n 198@ !sslin was appointed $ead of BB/ +adio )rama< B' t$e mid=198?s t$e +adio )rama department at t$e BB/ was originating between B?? and D?? pla's a 'ear< -n 1977 !sslin turned to teac$ing< 1e became Professor of )rama at Stanford *niversit'; /alifornia; for two Guarters annuall'; until 19::; and after t$at Professor !meritus< 1e $ad also been visiting Professor of %$eatre at 2lorida State *niversit' E1989=1978F< 1e ac$ieved muc$ recognition as t$e aut$or of two of t$e most influential books dealing wit$ t$e post=war t$eatre; Brec$tH " /$oice of !vils E19D9F and %$e %$eatre of t$e "bsurd E198>F I a term coined b' !sslin< !sslin was awarded t$e JB! in 197><6 #rom Austrian 8utural #orum