Theater of the Absurd

Around 1950, however, a new group of playwrights created a revolution in

European drama by taking the irrational into the structure, motivations,

and language of their plays. Although very different in style, these

dramatists shared a rejection of traditional cause-and-effect realistic drama,

and as a group came to be known as the absurdists.

The first absurdist to gain attention was Arthur Adamov of France, whose

early works, such as La parodie (The Parody, 1952), were influenced

philosophically by existentialism and structurally by surrealism. The first

great success of the absurdist movement and probably the most known of

all its plays, En attendant Godot (1953; Waiting for Godot, 1954), was

written in French by Irish-born playwright Samuel Beckett, who came to

be recognized as one of the major dramatists of the late 20th century. The

time waiting for a savior who never comes. They have become two of the

most familiar figures in modern theater.

The theater of the absurd had only a limited impact in England, but several

playwrights did adopt its approaches and principles. In 1957 N. F.

Simpson brought absurdist comedy to England with his The Resounding

Tinkle. The most important English dramatist with a clear connection to

the absurd is Tom Stoppard, who began a series of brilliant verbal

comedies with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966). Stoppard

placed these minor characters from Hamlet at the center of the play, with

characterizations clearly indebted to Beckett's two famous tramps. The

early plays of Peter Shaffer, most notably The Private Ear (1962) and The

Public Eye (1962), also show their debt to absurdist theater in their

humorous examinations of a hostile universe. His later and better known

works, including Amadeus (1979), are much closer to realism, even though

his plays often jump back and forth within space and time.

The international success of absurdist dramatists drew attention to

dramatists who had taken part in earlier nonrational movements in France

and elsewhere.

Other Antirealistic Experiments

The two leading Swiss dramatists of the postwar years, Friedrich

Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch, were for a time considered part of the

absurdist movement because their plays departed from conventional

realism. However, their dark, exaggerated allegories have little in common

with Ionesco or Beckett, and Dürrenmatt's suggestion that his plays be

called grotesque rather than absurd highlights the difference. Frisch's

Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958; The Fire Raisers, 1962) and

Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956; The Visit, 1958), for

example, are grim moral fables, with distorted but quite rational dramatic

actions. Closer to the absurdists were the experiments of Peter Handke of

Austria. His Publikumsbeschimpfung (1966; Offending the Audience,

1969), even more than any work by Ionesco, might be best described as an

antiplay. It directly attacks the dramatic illusion itself by having the actors

.and insult the audience