absurd theatre_context.pptx

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absurd theatre,

existentialism,

context,

beckett Sipra Mukherjee

Course 202 401 West Bengal State University

didi and gogo

waiting for godot

social and historical background of

the age

• evils of imperialism exposed as

dehumanizing to both the colonised and

the coloniser

• impact of the two shockingly destructive

World Wars (potential of evil in human

nature a revelation) • Eminence of western Europe lost with

the world wars

intellectual background of the times • Absurdity of human situation in thearbitrary world -

• Impermanence of values, life,

conventions (arbitrariness of world)

• Loss of faith in certainties/religion

• Doubts about scientific progressbeing equated with advance of

civilization

the shock of the 2nd world war

• The F irst World War was

supposed to be ‘the war to end

all wars’, so the outbreak of

World War Two in 1939, alongwith the atrocities it brought,

destroyed all the basicassumptions people had about

feelings of uncertainty about

humanity and life

Faced with the horrors of the trench

warfare and the holocaust, people

began to lose their faith in god.The attitude of the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ is perhaps best summarised

by Beckett’s character, Clov, whoquestions ‘…You and I meansomething?’

‘THE SCREAM’

EDWARD MUNCH 'I was out walking with two friends. Thesun began to set. I felt a breath of

melancholy. Suddenly the sky turned

blood-red. I paused, deathly tired andleaned on a fence looking out across the

flaming clouds over the blue-black fjord

and towns. My friends walked on andthere I still stood, trembling with fear -and

I sensed a great, infinite scream run

through nature.'

the scream

production history of play

• – the original French En Attendant

Godot – the text was composed

between 1948 and 1949.• Premiered in Paris, 1953.

Waiting for Godot – was Beckett’stranslation of his play, 1955,

London.

h l h / h k

Philosophers/writers whose works

are are existentialist in tone/theme: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Heidegger Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus

Arthur Schopenhauer :

"Life is a task —drudgery filled with universal

need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure,endless strife, compulsory activity requiring

extreme exertion of all the powers of body

and mind. The tumult is indescribable. And

the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To

sustain an ephemeral and tormented

individual through a short span of time, in

the most fortunate case with endurable want

and comparative freedom from pain...and to

reproduce the race and its strivings.

In this evident disproportion between the

trouble and the reward, the will to live

appears to us from this point of view, iftaken objectively, as a fool's paradise, or

subjectively, as a delusion wherein

everyone living works with the utmostexertion of his strength for something

that is of no value. And when we consider

it more closely, we shall find that this willto live is rather a blind pressure, a

tendency entirely without ground or

motive."

Kierkegaard : Maintained that

the individual is solely

responsible for giving his orher own life meaning and for

living that life passionatelyand sincerely, in spite of

many existential obstacles

and distractions includingdespair, angst, absurdity,

alienation, and boredom .

playwrights of the absurd theatre •Samuel Beckett, •Eugène Ionesco, • Jean Genet, •Harold Pinter, •Tom Stoppard, •Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and •Edward Albee.

origins

•Theatre of the Absurd is thoughtto have or iginated from the

theatre of ancient Greece

between c. 550 and c.220 BC.

From what was named ‘Old

Comedy’, particularly from theworks of playwr ights such as

Aristophanes (The Frogs)

Old Comedy is thought to have come about

from songs, mime and improvisation where

there was satir ical treatment of domestic

situations and from myths and commentary on

society, poli tics, li terature and the

Peloponnesian War that was happening

between the Athenian Empire and thePeloponnesian league, led by Sparta. Old

Comedy was often exaggerated and farcical

origins: ‘ Ubu Roi ’ In 1896 a French writer named Alfred Jarry

created a play called ‘ Ubu Roi ’ (King Ubu).

This is acknowledged as influencing the Dadaand Surrealist movements , and as a theatrical

precursor to Theatre of the Absurd.

The play ridicules European philosophies andtheir sometimes ludicrous practices includingaspects of folklore, myth and storylines.

Jarry’s plays are said to be greatly hated for

their lack of respect to society, religion androyalty. They were vulgar and brutally harsh,mocking theatrical conventions and using anonsensical blend of language and song.

Clifford Odet’s Waiting for Lefty

Odet’s famous 1935 play Waiting

for Lefty was about workers

oppressed by capitalism, waiting for the salvation in the form

of union organiser Lefty. But the play ends as the workers learn

that Lefty will not come after all

Leading to the following aspects

of Absurd Theatre: unusual, innovative, avantgarde

forms, to startle the audience

out of the comfortable,conventional life of everyday

concerns

attempt to bring ritual and myth

back into our lives through art.

Pl i h h B k d Pi

Playwrights such as Beckett and Pinterdid not claim to be part of the

‘Theatre of the Absurd ’. It was notthey who gave the name to theirmovement. Instead, this was a name

given to their work by others.To be part of the ‘anti -theatre’movement was found more

acceptable, as they attackedtraditional art forms as no longerbeing valid in this pointless existence.

w hat is the ‘absurd’?

The ‘absurd’ in this sense refers not to

the ridiculous but to being ‘out of

harmony’.

Camus argued that it was the world that

was absurd, and that the theatre was only

reflecting this absurdityEugene Ionesco claimed that the ‘Absurd

is that which is devoid of purpose…’

distrust of language as a means

of communication. Language

appeared to be a vehicle formere conventional, meaningless

exchanges, unable to express theessence of human experience Drama of this age becomes

either a parody or dismissal of

concept of the "well-made play".

Friedrich Nietzsche ‘God is Dead’

• In 1883 a revolutionary thesis was published bythe German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Itwas called ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’ and it

declared that ‘God is dead’. • Nietzsche wrote of religion, morality, philosophy

and contemporary culture, he has been a greatinfluence in many fields including Existentialism

and Post Modernism as he radically questionedthe value of truth, he sought to bring about amore naturalistic source of value in the impulsesof life itself.

absurdism •

Beckett’s/Camus’ philosophy hassometimes been called Absurdism, which

focusses on the conflict between human

potential/yearning and ability/reality.

•This is closer to existentialism and

nihilism-, which appeared a more

probable explanation (?) of life in thecontext of the post-2ndWorld War

devastated France.

" i it f i d fi f th h l f

"... in spite of or in defiance of the whole of

existence he wills to be himself with it, to

take it along, almost defying his torment.

For to hope in the possibility of help, not to

speak of help by virtue of the absurd, that

for God all things are possible– no, that he

will not do. And as for seeking help from any

other – no, that he will not do for all the

world; rather than seek help he would prefer

to be himself – with all the tortures of hell, ifso it must be." -Søren Kierkegaard,The Sickness Unto Death

theatre of the absurd The term coined by Martin

Esslin Refers to a kind of theatre in

late 1940s to 1960s Inspired by Albert Camus’

idea of the arbitrariness of

human existence in this world.

Camus’ in his 'Myth of Sisyphus’

(1942) first defined the humansituation as basically meaningless and

absurd. The 'absurd' plays all share

the view that man is inhabiting auniverse with which he is out of key.

Its meaning is indecipherable and his

place within it is without purpose. He

is bewildered, troubled and obscurely

threatened.

an anecdote eckett walking with a friend across a

soccer field on a sunny afternoon,

heading for a pub:

Beckett: It's a beautiful day, isn't it?“ The friend: Yes, it makes one glad to

be alive.“

Beckett: Aw now, I wouldn't go that

absurd theatre_context.pptx

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