Theatre of the Absurd

The theater of the absurd is a direction of the theater of the 20th century, who wants to represent the meaning of freedom in the world and the fact disoriented people.

  • 3.1 Early experimental theater
  • 3.2 pioneers
  • 3.3 successor
  • 3.4 German -language "relatives"

Basic features of the theater of the absurd

The concept of the theater of the absurd ( fr. Théâtre de l' absurd ) was formed in the 1950s as a collective term for a predominantly emerging in France kind of dramas with grotesquely comical and unreal scenes; at least since the eponymous monograph by Martin Esslin (New York, 1961), the concept of " theater of the absurd " established. After Seipel (1961 ) to early experimental pieces of later works can be distinguished.

Early experimental dramas

The first drama with absurd trains and conscious turning away from classical theater is " Ubu Roi " ( "King Ubu " ) by Alfred Jarry, which in 1896 caused a scandal. Jarry as later other authors ( Artaud, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Ciprian Gheorghe ) playing with linguistic commonplaces and bring them concretely to the stage. Her pieces have anti-bourgeois and propagandistic intentions and are partly similar to fables. Overall, in these works, the impression remains that their otherness goes beyond just a little more than a playful experiment. This may be the reason why, with the exception of "King Ubu " the dramas of the early experimental phase, as no longer to be found in the repertoire so well today.

Late experimental, theater of the absurd

A consistent and radical in the rejection of the classical theater structures are writers such as Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, whose works are typically associated with the " theater of the absurd " or even the term " anti- theater ". The dramas of Beckett, especially his most famous work " En attendant Godot " ( " Waiting for Godot" ) are now part of world literature.

In the plays of the " absurd dramatist " dissolve, required by the classical theater units of time, the action and the place. In their place illogical scenarios, absurd actions and linked randomly appearing dialog rows so that eventually can no longer be from classical theater in the Aristotelian sense, which goes back to the rules of poetry, spoken.

The pieces playwright Arthur Adamov, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Michel de Gholderode and Georges Schehadé can be referred to as a modern form of myths theater and considered in connection with the issues and questions of psychoanalysis ( flowering, 1982). Doubt on the conventional rationalist culture and systems of thought are considered the catalyst for the emergence of this new form of expression, and thus as a continuation of the efforts of Surrealism ( Seipel, 1961/1982 ). Is particularly evident this aspect in the works of Ionesco, who describes his pieces even as dramatic design of the obsessional contradictions of his own unconscious.

It is controversial whether it is the theater of the absurd to " absurd representations " or to the "presentation of the Absurd ", that is, the absurdity of the world as it appears. According to Wolfgang Hildesheimer many viewers sympathize with the former assumption. Since they refused to yourself and to keep their lives for absurd, they refused, so from Hildesheim, theater of the absurd. In particular performances of Beckett pieces are known to a large part of the audience already to break leaving the theater.

Most theorists sympathetic to the second-mentioned assumption, according to which the theater of the absurd can be understood as an expression of a world view of the absurd. Points of contact there is with the existentialist philosophy in France in the thirties and forties by the work of Jean -Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and the absurd existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus (1913-1960) became popular. Both flows thematize by different means the consequence of the recognition of the Lebensabsurdität. They are to be considered in the context of the crisis situation in Europe after the Second World War.

Fears and obsessions are given in the works of avant-garde theater in the form of a semiotic expression. Influenced by Antonin Artaud receivables (Le Théâtre et son double, 1938), the playwright endeavor to assign a dialogue equal role with gestures, decor and stage elements. Language is exposed as formulaic, devoid of meaning of communication.

The blending of tragic and comic elements is also characteristic of the New Theatre. Beckett provides En attendant Godot, subtitled "Une comédie tragic " and alluding to the discussion since the 17th century separability of the classical genre. Absurd actions and dialogues culminate in his plays often in situation comedy that - embedded in the tragic situation of the characters - reinforce the tragic effect of the pieces. Remuneration consists of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, the Commedia dell'arte and the Music Hall.

Known pieces

  • Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry
  • Waiting for Godot and Endgame by Samuel Beckett
  • The Chairs, Rhinoceros, The Bald Soprano, The new tenant, The Lesson and The Great Massacre Game by Eugène Ionesco
  • The Garden Party by Václav Havel
  • The switch by Jean Tardieu

Authors of the theater of the absurd

Early experimental theater

  • Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
  • Alfred Jarry (1873-1907)
  • Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
  • Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)

Pioneers

  • Michel de Gholderode (1898-1962)
  • Georges Schehadé (1905-1989)
  • Jean Tardieu (1905-1995)
  • Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)
  • Arthur Adamov (1908-1970)
  • Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994)
  • Jean Genet (1910-1986)

Successor

German -language "relatives"

  • Max Frisch (1911-1991)
  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990)
  • Wolfgang Hildesheimer (1916-1991)
  • Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989)
  • George Tabori (1914-2007)
  • Martin Walser (* 1927)
  • Franz Xaver Kroetz ( b. 1946 )
  • Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010)
Irrealis mood Poetics (Aristotle) Endgame (play) The Garden Party (short story) Integrated Authority File
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